The Image of You I Create
by tia8206
Summary: It's very stressful, being a mother... The story of Juliet's pre-Sept. 2004 life with Rachel, Jack and David. AU in that the Alt is considered a second incarnation of life. Future Suliet/Jate implied.
1. Everything You Were Looking For

**Yes, before you all ask, I am still finishing my other story. This is going to be maybe a three- or four-shot.**

* * *

_It's kind of like our running joke _  
_but it's really not funny_  
_and I just want you to live up _  
_to the image of you I create._

- Ani DiFranco, "Dilate"

* * *

**Miami, Summer 1988**

This is really all Rachel's fault, or her father's, Juliet thinks as she swipes the groceries over the scanner. While most of Juliet's classmates are living it up during their last summer before college, Juliet's stuck in a sweltering Miami summer as checkout girl at the Publix on Biscayne Boulevard. And calling her mother's stupid hospice from the payphone outside on her breaks.

And Rachel's living with a bunch of stoner grad-school rejects doing too many drugs in the Arizona desert and following Phish in her copious spare time. Must be nice.

What the hell is it with her sister, anyway? It's like Rachel's always trying to run away from her.

It would all be fine, even, except Rachel was supposed to fly in last night and instead called with all sorts of excuses about how she'll be here next weekend instead, and Dad's supposed to be coming up from Key West so now Juliet's going to have to face him alone, and please don't let that be Stephen Brisson who just walked in the door. Juliet's rumpled uniform shirt is streaked with who knows what, and there's a long scratch on her arm where the vacuum-sealed seam of a frozen pork loin caught her skin. She yanks at one of the rubber bands around her wrist and pulls her hair back.

Stephen's here with a nicely dressed older woman who's probably his mother. She's wearing neatly pressed white slacks, a peach-colored blouse, a simple gold bracelet. Juliet feels a tremor of anger jolt through her; her own mother hasn't been out of pajamas in more than two weeks. She loses sight of them after they disappear at the end of the produce aisle and manages to forget about them until they appear in her line. _Perfect._

Even though she's supposed to say hello and ask how they're doing this afternoon, she swallows her automatic greetings and starts ringing up their groceries. She can feel Stephen watching her. "Didn't you go to South Miami Senior?" he says eventually, and her heart does a stupid little flip.

She clenches her jaw. "Yeah." She tops off the first bag and tries to smile, sliding the bag across the counter to Stephen's mother.

"Yeah, yeah, I thought so. Melanie, right?"

Juliet wants to sink through the floor and die. She doesn't even know what to say, and feels a blush rising up. "Um," she gestures toward her nametag. Which is totally right over her boob. Great. Why doesn't she just slow him some cleavage while she's at it?

Except Stephen's mom chuckles. "Nice move, Stevie."

Juliet bites her lip to ward off the threat of sudden laughter. _Yeah, Stevie,_ she thinks.

He has the good sense to look embarrassed at least, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck."I mean - I know who you are and all, you were in fourth-period chem with Mr. Ziegner, it's just - "

She decides to cut him some slack. "Melanie was my lab partner."

"Oh. Oh, right. I'm Stephen."

_I know,_ she thinks. "Oh."

Stephen's mom sort of smirks at them, hands him her wallet. "I'll bring the car around. Think you can finish up here?"

"Yeah, no problem." He nods to his mom, who leaves. Good woman. "You don't talk a whole lot, huh? Are you uh... You going to school this fall?" She looks up at him, wondering why he should be at all curious about her. "Here, lemme help you," he continues. He starts bagging groceries. Frozen peas, chicken breast (it's on special this week), asparagus (99 cents a pound, also on special), tomatoes. Three are fine and the fourth one looks a little wonky.

"UCLA," she finally says. "You're going to crush the croissants, put them on top."

"Long way from home." he observes.

Well, obviously. She'd think he was dumb if he weren't so damn pretty. She needs to get the hell out of Miami, though, and she's pretty sure that by the end of the summer, there won't be anything left for her here anyway. She feels that shiver of fear that she's usually pretty good at ignoring, and fixes her eyes on Stephen. "It'll be an adventure," she manages. "How about you?"

"Oh, MCU. Not so much of an adventure." Stephen looks a lot more nervous than Juliet feels right now. Then again, she really has nothing to lose. "Listen, maybe we could, uh..." He shifts his weight to his right foot.

She tilts her head at him._ Say it, say it, please_, she thinks.

"Julie!" her manager barks. "Your line is backing up, you can flirt on your own time!"

Stephen turns bright red, hefts the bags onto his hip. "See you around, Julie."

She takes just a moment to glance up at the age-curling drop ceiling, blinking back tears. She focuses on her next customer. "Good afternoon, welcome to Publix, did you find everything you were looking for today?"

* * *

Juliet gets home from work at 10, lets the dog out (what's going to happen to Georgie, she wonders) and shuffles through the mail. Hospital bill, hospital bill, Good Housekeeping (what a fucking joke), hospice bill (great, that's the first one), junk mail, collections agency. Her father can deal with that later. If he ever decides to show up.

She orders dumplings and sesame chicken from Grand Hunan, which is the same exact thing she eats every night she works late. She crosses today off the calendar, June 20. She's not exactly sure what she's crossing off, but she'd graduated high school five days ago. Her mother came, driven by her friend Christie.

Christie had offered to have Juliet stay at her house. "Your mother is like a sister to me, hon," she'd told her, chain-smoking outside the hospice after they'd brought her mother back. Chain-smoking like it couldn't possibly ever cause cancer._ That's Texans for you._ "We hate the idea of you rattlin' all around that big ol' house all by yourself."

"I'm fine," Juliet had assured her. "Rachel's coming next week, anyway."

Christie patted her arm in a gesture that showed she was nobody's mother, not really. "You just remember my offer, hon."

* * *

Rachel finally shows up in mid-July. She's driven her junk-bunket '76 Nova all the way from Flagstaff with a sturdy-looking pitbull mix in the back, and Georgie hides out in the backyard and Juliet hides out there, too, up in a tree like she's 10 instead of 18 after Rachel calls all her old friends and stages a party on her first night back.

"Come down and join the party, Juuuuulie!" Rachel's friend Todd bellows at Juliet. His voice is slurred as hell and he's standing at the base of the tree holding a beer in one hand and a bottle of Jose Cuervo in the other. Juliet just stares down at him.

"Leave her alone, Todd." Rachel inhales the last bit of the joint and stubs it out on the edge of the patio table. "Juliet just always wants to be left alone."

_That's not true_, she thinks, but she shifts and looks away from them. Looks up at the sky.

* * *

Their mother dies the next day. Rachel is with her when it happens and Juliet doesn't find that fucking fair at all.


	2. Nametags

_Every song as a you,_  
_A you the singer sings to,_  
_And you're it this time._

- Ani DiFranco, "Dilate"

* * *

**UCLA, Late Spring 1989**

"Did ... did you ever think, college, wow, this is it, like your whole life is finally beginning?" Gemma hits the elevator button for the fifth floor.

"Aren't we going to four?" Juliet presses the correct button.

"Didn't you?" Gemma insists, reaching into the small bag of pretzels she bought on the walk over. The elevator smells like old paper; the doors close hesitantly behind them. "I always thought, once I was on my own everything could really begin for me. But there is no on your own, you know?" she says around a mouth full of pretzel. "Not _really_. There's always _something_. Someone pulling you back into their own personal galaxy like your only FUCKING purpose - " she throws her hands into the air - "is to be there for_ them." _

Juliet turns her heads slowly and deliberately. "Are you still high?"

"Does it _seem_ like I'm still high?"

The doors open on the fourth floor. Juliet holds the door for Gemma. "If you're still high you should just go home. You're not going to make a good impression."

Gemma scowls. She's the dramatic one; Juliet's the stable one. She's so so so good at being the stable one. Then again, of course she is. After all, Juliet isn't the one who decided to smoke two bowls at 2 p.m. when they had a reception for next year's mentoring program at 5. "You know you can't do this next year when we have Orgo," Juliet reminds her.

"Which is why I'm trying to have fun _now_ before we have to go off and start playing Doctor Barbie." Gemma's grades have been really good throughout their freshman year, which was down to the last week before finals. Not as good as Juliet's, but good enough that they'd both been invited to participate in the mentoring program, which matches second-year undergrads with second-year med students. Officially it was to provide guidance for undergrads on the pre-med track. Juliet is fairly certain that its actual intention is for UCLA to retain those undergrads when it came time for them to choose (very expensive) med schools.

Except Gemma's not going to be able to cut it next year, Juliet already knows. "Just go home. I'll tell them you had a stomachache."

"Ew, don't tell them that, they'll think of me puking or something."

Juliet stops walking because they're already halfway down the hall, and she can hear the buzz of conversation spilling out of the classroom being used for the meet-and-greet. "What do you want me to tell them?"

"Just say..." Gemma twists where she stands. "Say I have a really, really bad cold."

Juliet nods.

"OK, thanks Jules, you're the best. Call me tomorrow. Find out who my mentor's gonna be. Tell me if he's cute." (Juliet's going to miss Gemma next year, she really is.)

Juliet's at the door to the room of the reception, and here she is, all a-fucking-lone again, and now she changes her mind, she_ hates_ Gemma in this instant, waiting for someone to notice her. Of course she knows some of the other freshmen from her courses - but the small crowd's already engaged in individualized clusters. The desks are all pushed up against the walls. On shaky knees she approaches the instructor's table, covered in blank 'Hello My Name Is' stickers, and reaches for the single Sharpie.

She's already writing her name when a tall guy comes up behind her and slides one of those stickers across the table, toward himself. He's trying to smile politely at her, she can see from the corner of her eye, and she hesitates for a second.

"You'd think with the tuition rates what they are, they could find another marker somewhere," he says, and winks at her. His eyeteeth are a little pointy, like a vampire's, and she pauses, turns up from the table to look at him.

He must be one of the med students; he's too young to be a professor and a little too old to be a freshman, and besides she thinks she would remember him if she'd seen him before. He's broad-shouldered and tall (a few inches taller than her, which is always something she appreciates in a guy, not that she's looking). And also a little lanky, but she detects a hint of bicep under his suit jacket, she thinks (dammit, why is she thinking this?). He's got maybe a day's worth of stubble on his face and these pretty eyes that might be green or brown or hazel.

He looks a little frantic - but the first-year med students always do, from what she can tell - and she flashes him a sideways smile full of awkward apology, and bends back down to her nametag-in-progress.

The i-e-t comes out shaky and bunched-up compared to the smoother J-u-l, but as soon as she's done she holds out the Sharpie to him. There's a strange little jolt in her fingertips when she makes contact with him. It makes her think of strange things, a dilapidated aquarium, a branding iron like the kind they use for cattle, a dirty-ish man holding out an aloe leaf. She really needs to start getting more sleep.

He's got the Sharpie now but he's looking at her strangely instead of focusing on the nametag he's supposed to be filling out. He's squinting at her a little, and his mouth goes slack for just an instant before he shakes his head rapidly, just once. Quite possibly, he needs to start getting more sleep too.

She stands there because she's not otherwise sure where she's supposed to go.

"I'm guessing you're one of the undergrads?" he asks as he scrawls his name.

"Yeah," she says, tilting her head slightly to read his name as he peels the sticker off the wax paper and applies it just under his jacket pocket. Jack Shephard, he's written, and she flushes with embarrassment because she hadn't even thought to write her last name.

He catches her looking and gestures to the nametag. "Jack Shephard," he says unnecessarily, extending a hand.

"Juliet Carlson," she says, and grasps his hand. Again, that stupid little jolt, but she ignores it this time.

"Nice to meet you," he says automatically, and she almost melts in gratitude that she's not standing here alone anymore. "You know where I could find a Gemma Coutu? She's gonna be my mentee for next year."

Juliet's heart sinks. "She's... She's actually sick. She... couldn't make it." What illness had they decided on, again? She imagines Jack peeling off his nametag and leaving.

Instead he shrugs. "Guess I just get to kick back and relax here, then?" He grins again, showing those pointy teeth. She sort of likes them. Jack reaches back to the desk, scrawls a phone number on one of those nametags. "Here," he says, extending the sticker to her, this time without peeling it off the backing. "If you see her, give her my number. If there's anything she wants to talk about for next semester, tell her to call me."

Juliet takes his number and then isn't sure what to do with it for a second, because she's wearing a dress with no pockets. She pauses for a second and then remembers her handbag, unzips it and sticks his number in there. And then of course the stupid fucking zipper gets jammed and she gets stuck struggling with her stupid bag in front of him.

He ignores it. "You find your mentor yet?"

_Thank you, thank you,_ she thinks, and leaves the bag unzipped. "No, I just got here too."

"Hey, Gareth," Jack calls over to a nearby crowd; a man in his mid-forties leans back. "This is Juliet - you know who's got her for fall?"

"Yeah, Amanda - " The guy points to a female med student in the back corner, who looks up when she hers her name.

Juliet flashes an appreciative grin at Jack before she can help herself. But Amanda is a shade annoying, all business, drooling over Juliet's grades and admonishing her for not engaging herself in any extra-curricular activities.

"What about fall semester? What are you taking?"

Juliet launches it off. "Orgo 1, physics 1, um, third-semester Latin, genetics and African lit."

Amanda's jaw drops a little. "Are you insane? There's no way - uh, I mean, don't you think you'll be overloaded? You should probably be taking at least one really easy class during Orgo."

"Only one way to find out, right? _You already know I have a 4.0 right now,_ she wants to say, but doesn't because that would be waaaay too cocky, and anyway, freshman year isn't exactly rocket science, anyway. She really really has to stop hanging out with Gemma.

"What about the rest of your gen ed requirements?"

"I'm taking a bunch this summer at community college. Next year I'd like to focus on the important stuff." Her mom's friend Christie had invited her to spend the summer in Miami, but Juliet didn't know if she could handle going back there right now. She's spending the summer at her father's in Key West. Except he has a new girlfriend, Stephanie something, and Juliet's already bracing herself for the potential awkwardness. She's loaded up on summer courses. And there's always Publix to fall back on. Should be a delightful three months.

"Tell me again what you're taking this fall?" Juliet runs through it again, and Amanda shakes her head. "Oh, Jesus, if you can get through that the med schools are gonna _love_ you."

_At least that'll make someone_, she thinks before she can help it.

* * *

After awhile she looks around for Jack and can't find him. The rest of the reception is a series of stupid ice-breaker games, quasi-gross appetizers and a short speech from the program director.

When it's over Juliet peels off the nametag sticker and chucks it into the ladies' room garbage, glances at her reflection and wondering what the hell it is she looks so upset about. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, forcing her face back into a calm, neutral expression. _There, that's better._

* * *

Juliet takes another deep breath when she pushes through the double-glass doors. It's about a million degrees out, hot and hazy in the last couple of hours of sunlight. She's half a block away when she spots the suddenly familiar outline of Jack leaning against a Toyota Camry. Her gait speeds up before she realizes, and his face comes into view, sun all around him.

"Hey," he says with surprise. "How was the end of the reception?"

"Awesome," she says dryly, without thinking, and he chuckles.

"I thought I could escape early since my mentee wasn't there. Did I get caught?"

"Only because you just told me." She lies smoothly. _It's not like I was looking around for you or anything. It's not like you're incredibly cute or anything._

"My, uh - " He gestures to the boxy silver car behind him. "I have a flat. Just waiting for a friend to come help me out."

The words just fly out of her mouth like she's possessed by someone older, wiser, funnier. "Didn't your father ever teach you how to change a tire?"

Jack looks embarrassed, and she sees his overly confident veneer fade a little bit, but then he chuckles again. That's how she'd describe his laugh, a chuckle, even though "chuckle" is exactly the sort of word she normally hates. "No, my father taught me how to drink."

She bites her lip, trying not to smile because it didn't seem like something that's supposed to be funny. "Well, at least it's something. Do you have a spare?"

"In the trunk."

Now here, here's something she can do. "Want me to show you how to change a tire?"

He rubs the back of his neck, squinting into the sun. "Nah, really, you're all dressed up, and - "

"It's a black dress. The dirt won't show."

He looks at her skeptically, his nostrils flaring slightly. She gets the perception that he doesn't like to be told what to do, but this is idiotic.

"There's a payphone on the corner. See if you can catch your friend before he leaves. Then take off your jacket, roll up your sleeves and I can tell you what to do." She delivers all this in the calmest voice she can find, the voice she's been noticing lately gets people to listen to her.

And, to her great surprise, he does.

Afterward he wipes his hands on a stack of tissues from the glovebox. "You, ah... You didn't have to do that. Thank you."

"I'm glad I could help," she says, and turns to go.

"Wait. Could I, uh... Are you doing anything right now?"

She shakes her head.

"Maybe you'd like to do for a drink? I sort of owe you." He flashes that grin at her again.

A thrill runs through her, and also she wants to die. "I'm... I'm underage."

"Dinner, then. Come on, let me make it up to you."

Is he this charming with every girl who randomly helps him change a tire in 90-degree weather? She tucks a sweaty strand of hair behind her ear. Frankly, she wants to go home and take a shower and drape herself over the air conditioner. But... this is never going to happen again if she doesn't go right now. "OK," she says finally. "Thanks."

In the car, they keep the windows down until the air conditioning kicks in. The dark blue upholstery is hot under her legs, and there are empty styrofoam coffee cups rolling around on the floor. _Life of a med student,_ she thinks, surveying her future in automotive trash.

"You must think I'm pretty stupid to not know how to change a tire until today, huh?" he says sheepishly.

She looks up at him, tilting her head. The gust from the A/C is hitting her on the side of her face, it feels incredibly refreshing, and for once she says what she thinks. "I don't think you're stupid, Jack. I think you're stubborn."


	3. Styrofoam Coffee Cups

_Life used to be life-like._

- Ani DiFranco, "Dilate"

* * *

"This is really nice of you," Juliet repeats once they're seated.

Jack waves his hand dismissively, grins at her. "It was the least I could do. It's probably 95 degrees out there, and you still stopped to help me."

_Technically, the least you could do would be nothing, _she thinks.

Jack goes on. "Besides, it looks like you could use a decent meal."

She leans back a bit before she can help it, can't stop herself from flinching. That's not really something he has any right to comment on, no matter how he means it. Sure, she's a little underweight, but with the class load she's been taking and the fact that she never gets a decent night's sleep and the whole stupid grief counseling group hounding her about her missed attendance (_voluntary, my ass_), how the hell is she supposed to take care of everything?

"I didn't mean anything by that, it's just, uh" - he rubs his right hand against the back of his neck, dropping his gaze to the table - "I remember what it was like freshman year, stuck in the dorms and living on ramen."

Juliet forces herself to smile blandly. A waitress arrives, pours them water, hands them menus. They lapse into a glorious, un-awkward silence while they read over their options, and Juliet wishes this part could last as long as possible. Yeah, he's cute, but he's also four years older than her, and anyway, he's just trying to be nice, and she would really like to get out of here ASAP. She wiggles her toes in her uncomfortable pumps. They're a sensible height, of course; she's a sensible person and the shoes are beige (and her life is beige) but they are a little bit too tight and hot and they pinch and she really wants to go home. Or "home," whatever. (_I don't have a home_, she thinks, and then, _Shut up._)

The waitress comes back. They order. She sips her water. They smile politely at each other for a long moment, and then they both speak at once. "Where are you from?" he asks, and "How has - " she begins before lapsing into silence.

"No, you go," he instructs.

"I was - I was going to ask how your first year of med school has been."

Jack talks for awhile, about classes and labs and egocentric professors and sleep deprivation and the awful coffee in the cafe at the med school library, and she doesn't really need to say anything other than _Oh, really? _and _Wow_ and _Yeah, I bet. _Not that she's not interested, because she is, really. But what else can she really say?_  
_

Finally Jack reaches some sort of endpoint and grins sheepishly at her. (She sees those pointy eyeteeth again. She likes them.) "I guess I'm not really selling you on the idea of med school, huh?" he says.

But ohhh come on, it's not like she's_ not_ anticipating cranky instructors and sleepless nights worse than the ones she already has. "It sounds pretty much like I'm expecting. A huge ball of fun."

"Brave girl," he winks (_girl_, she notes, just a girl to him), and the waitress brings their drinks: her Coke, his bourbon on the rocks. Not really something any of her friends would drink, but then they haven't really moved beyond keg beer and cheap vodka just yet. Jack holds up his glass to her in a solitary toast. "To an utter lack of sleep for the rest of our lives." He's sort of humorless, she realizes, but manages to be charming nonetheless.

She wills herself to raise her stupid fucking Coke, and he reaches over the table, clinks his glass to hers.

They sip. "So where are you from?" he says again.

"Florida" seems easiest. "You?"

"Oh, here. Went to Columbia for my undergrad though. Nice to get out of L.A. for a few years, parents far away. Winters were rough, though. But I guess you wouldn't know too much about those."

Juliet had lived in Maine until she was nine, but she shakes her head anyway. The silence seems to hang between them for a moment, but Jack is the sort of person who needs to fill silences, she's noticing. And she's finding herself oddly grateful for it.

"Your parents must miss you like crazy, being so far away. You get back there to visit a lot this year?"

"Um," she stumbles. "They came for parents' weekend," she lies, "and I've been back a few times." Once. Her dad's for Christmas; she'd had to; they were booted out of the dorms over winter break. Rachel didn't show up.

"Sounds great. What do they do?"

"My - my dad sells insurance and my, my, my mom's a secretary." Her voice sort of wobbles at the end, goes up like it's a question. She clears her throat. "How about yours?"

"Well, my mother doesn't work. My father..." Jack's eyes seem to darken slightly. "He's a neurosurgeon at St. Sebastian's."

She feels legitimately impressed. "Wow. Big shoes to fill." Jack's face twists suddenly. Was that the wrong thing to say? She tries to recover. "He must be so proud of you."

He downs the rest of his drink. "Yeah," he says shortly.

OK, definitely the wrong thing to say. Jack starts telling her about some movie he's seen recently, "Say Anything" (and the irony of the title is definitely not lost on her), but the waitress, a savior in clogs, arrives with their order. For a few minutes they dig into their food. Juliet tries to figure out exactly why either of them thought this would be a good idea. Not that it's been exactly a bad idea, but she'd rather be analyzing this with Gemma later than living through it now.

She takes a long sip of her soda. "What are you most looking forward to in your rotations?"

Jack smiles, a true smile but a little shy, especially for him. "Oncology, actually. It's what I'm considering for my specialty. I just think it'll be really rewarding to help those people, find treatments that work. Offer them compassion and hope, you know?"

Trite, the kind of thing assholes would write in their admissions essays. But Juliet's chest tightens like a van has just landed on it. Before she has time to throw her hand in front of her face (which she does, a second later), she bursts out crying. Crying so hard that it's difficult to breathe. "I'm sorry - " she chokes out.

Jack's face is full of shock, which is replaced a moment later by worry. "Juliet - "

"No, I'm sorry," she manages behind her hand. How fucking embarrassing. "This is... really inappropriate." She tries to stand up, but in a split-second he's by her side, blocking her in the booth. All she wants to do is flee, but he sits down next to her, taking her free hand. She thinks of green flickering light, his arm around her throat, holding a jagged piece of broken glass against her jugular vein, and she can't breathe again.

"It's OK," he murmurs, even though half the restaurant is staring at them at this point. "It's OK."

_No_, she thinks, _it's really not. _But she nods behind her hand.

* * *

When he stops his car in front of her dorm, her first inclination is to kiss him and she doesn't even know why. Jack smiles a little, she sees his face in the glow of the streetlight and it's not that weird green flickering light from her creepy memory-that's-not-a-real-memory. It's just, he _listened_ to her, after she explained why she'd cried, and it's just... she's not sure when the last time it was that actually happened. That she had talked. That someone had listened.

"Feel a little better?" he asks.

She does. She nods. "Never knew changing a tire could be so stressful, did you?"

Jack chuckles, and looks down at her hand for a long moment, the one on her side of the seat closest to her. "When do you go leave for the summer?"

Is he just trying to make polite conversation? "My last final is the 15th, it's a Monday. So the day after."

"Not sticking around long, huh?"

Juliet shakes her head.

"Well, if you need a break from studying, you should give me a call or something."

"Yeah, OK," she says slowly. She's heard that before, all right. She's never taken any of them up on it. Gemma likes to say Juliet has a worrisome disorder called virginity. Juliet figures what Gemma doesn't know won't hurt her, and keeps her mouth shut on Stephen Brisson last August. Although last August was starting to feel like a _long_ time ago... especially the longer she's looking at Jack in this soft dim light.

"No, I mean it," he's saying, and then she flushes, thinking he's just trying to be nice. "You're gonna have to be the leader here."

_I'm not a leader. I'm a mess_. She doesn't say anything.

But Jack seems to have picked up on the way her face just changed. "Or maybe you should just give me your number." ...And then she changes her mind about his intentions. Again.

She presses her lips together for a moment. "Do you have any paper?"

He searches through the glove box, finds a pen. No paper except for his insurance card and registration, both of which he pretty much needs to keep.

Juliet reaches down among the empty styrofoam coffee cups that have been rolling around on the floor, picks one up. She plucks the pen from Jack's fingers and scrawls her number on the cup. "Here."

Jack takes the cup from her, smiling broadly at her. Almost too broadly. He holds up the cup like he's making a toast again. "Now that's creativity."

She puts her hand on the door handle, the smooth dark-brown plastic hot against her fingers. She pulls on it slowly, the hollow click quiet in the car. She wants to apologize, wants to thank him, but the words are stuck in her throat. "Good night, Jack," she breathes instead.


	4. Grilled Cheese

_You won't see me surrender. You won't hear me confess._  
_You've left me with nothing, but I've worked with less. _

- Ani DiFranco, "Dilate"

* * *

It's only after her face is pressed into Jack's chest - _after_ - that she starts to think maybe this wasn't the best idea.

But then why is she supposed to be so concerned? They're both sweaty and she's still trembling a little, and her mind's only barely beginning to clear up.  
There'd been that strange familiarity between them all through their second time out together (their second date? Is that what it was?), this weird underlying _something_ (or maybe that was just in her own head?) that translated itself into something unexpectedly hot once she'd meant to only go up to Jack's apartment for a drink. Only a drink. Ha.

All the same, she's not sure why the sex had felt so good and so... hostile... at the same time.

As if reading her mind, Jack shifts slightly and trails his fingers along her side. "I didn't invite you up here just to get you into bed," he says, almost sheepishly. "Just so you know." His hazel/green/whatever eyes look brown in this dim light.

Juliet lifts her head slightly, keeping the sheet in place. Which she knows is ridiculously silly, considering just a few minutes ago, she was anything but modest. "I'm leaving for the summer in two days," she reminds him. And without meaning to, it comes out almost wistful.

Jack continues like he didn't hear her, or maybe because he does. "I don't know what it is. You remind me of someone I..." He shakes his head and blinks uncomprehendingly.

Some girl who blew him off? And now he's got this impressionable little freshman in his bed, who looks just like her? Juliet's mouth goes dry. What is he trying to say, anyway? And why would he say it?

Putting her head back down onto his chest seems too cutesy now, like a forced intimacy. So she rolls away slightly, pressing her head into the other pillow, before she could let herself do something stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Like this whole thing.

But she's not going to let her face crumple or somehow otherwise betray what she's feeling... even though she's not exactly sure _what_ she's feeling. Somehow she assumes whatever secret, stored-up hope she has of actually _dating_ Jack is out the window now. Isn't that what all the magazines say? Don't sleep with them too soon or they'll lose respect for you? Except the more she thinks about it, well... she's thinking maybe doesn't regret what they just did, not really. Even if this one night is all it turns out to be. It's just that something in the back if her mind is telling her to feel regret. Like that's what a "nice" girl would feel.

Except is she really a nice girl? Nothing makes any sense. (What exactly is she supposed to want?)

Besides, Jack sort of reminds her of someone too, except she's doubtful that whom she's reminded of could even be a real person. There's no one lurking in her memory that could possibly be Jack; she'd searched it periodically throughout dinner tonight, half-convinced her mind was being haunted by... what?

She needs to stop wondering about this.

"I didn't mean..." he tries, and peters out because he clearly hadn't thought this through, and she thinks maybe she shouldn't be overly sensitive about it. His confident veneer has slipped some, maybe due to her silence. But she likes when it slips, this is maybe the second time now, when she can see these little glimmers of whatever's going on beneath. It reminds her maybe there's some equal ground between them, like maybe they could be more alike than she'd thought. Like maybe they could have more in common than a couple of dinners and then that rushed, sweaty sex.

"It's OK," she finally says, mainly (maybe 75 percent) because she has to say something, and maybe 10 percent because she wants it to be OK, and another 10 percent tugging gently at her, reminding her that's exactly what he's told her when she'd broken down sobbing in the booth of the restaurant that night they'd met, and it was probably the best thing anyone had done for her in probably months. (And maybe that last 5 percent because honestly, she'd really really like to have sex again.)

"That, uh..." He rubs his forehead like he's exhausted, "that wasn't your first time or anything, was it?"

She can't quite stop the blush. _Fourth, actually. Was I that bad? _But she doesn't think so. He'd seemed to have a good time, anyway. "No." A weird little chuckle slips out of her. Now she's starting to laugh like him?

Jack at least has the good sense to look embarrassed, too. "I didn't... I didn't think so, 'cause you, uh..." _Finished?_ she wants to suggest, even though she also wants to disappear, pretty much RIGHT NOW. He continues. "But I probably should have asked."

She's not sure whether he's being kind, or trying to be, or just pretending to be. But, wow. This is turning awkward at lightning speed. "Don't you think this is getting a little personal?"

Jack's nostrils flare slightly, the navy-blue sheet dipping down to his waist, and he rolls over to look directly at her, propping his face up on his hand. "We just slept together. How impersonal did you want to keep this?"

There wasn't exactly any _sleeping_ involved, she notes, but Juliet tries to coerce her face into something expressionless. It isn't easy, but why does she feel like she suddenly has the upper hand here? The power dynamic isn't at all what she'd thought it was. "I don't - I don't - I didn't mean..." Oh, yeah right. It doesn't matter how impassive her face looks if all that can come out of her mouth is outright stuttering.

But his face softens somehow. "Are you hungry?" Juliet glances at the clock. 1:08 a.m. It's been hours, at this point, since dinner. She nods.

Jack sits up, leans over his side of the bed, finds his boxers. She feels a little embarrassed, in retrospect, by how violently she'd tugged them off of him earlier. But he just slides them on like there's nothing, nothing, awkward about this situation at all, and crosses the room of his little studio apartment to the kitchen area. He leans down, behind the laminate island counter, opens a cabinet and reappears over the edge holding a frying pan.

"Grilled cheese OK? I really need to make a grocery run."

"Mm-hm." She smiles politely. Funny, it had felt like they were on the verge of a fight just seconds ago. Now he's cooking for her? "Thank you."

She pulls on her shirt and underwear while he cooks, unsure if she should get dressed the rest of the way when, after all, he's still only in his boxers. But if he'd wanted her to make a hasty retreat, he wouldn't be cooking for her now, she thinks, as she tries to run her fingers through the huge knot at the back of her hair. She definitely has what Gemma calls "sex hair" right now.

Oh, God. Gemma. Juliet just fucked Gemma's mentor for next year. Or, he'd just fucked her. Either way. However that worked. This is going to get tricky. Not that Gemma's even met Jack yet, but even so, the last thing Juliet wants or needs - right now or ever - is to find herself in the middle of some awkward triangle.

Over at the counter, Jack slides two grilled cheese sandwiches onto a plate and then ambles over to the bed. "Want to eat this here?"

"As long as you don't mind crumbs in your sheets," she replies, and somehow the mood's lightened further. Sinking back onto the bed, Jack bites into his sandwich, and she bites into hers, and he touches her lips after she swallows the first mouthful.

Jack leans over and kisses her again, and he tastes like grilled cheese and scotch, although not necessarily in that order.

It's then she knows he's going to ask her to sleep here, and she also knows it's unlikely that they'll be doing much actual sleeping, and she is so, so grateful that she isn't going to be alone for the rest of tonight, because today was Rachel's birthday, and Rachel hasn't even returned her calls in weeks.

* * *

Juliet wakes up before him, watches him sleep. The sheet's fallen down to his hips. With her eyes, she traces the appendectomy scar she'd first noticed last night. Looks around the apartment from the spot she's curled up in, in the bed, now that he can't see her looking. His bookcase is stocked full of textbooks, but she can't even see one non-academic book. She realizes that she doesn't really know what he does for fun.

Travel, she remembers from their dinner conversation last night. He'd said he loved to travel. But what about when he's in L.A.? OK, so he's not a reader. Not everyone is. Besides, he probably reads enough in his medical textbooks and cases. Maybe she'll have to give up reading for fun, too, in a few more years.

The place is small, sort of messy, sort of run-down. Shabby dark-brown carpet worn by the door and over where the couch meets the coffee table. Jack's father's a neurosurgeon, he'd said. They must have serious money, but this apartment doesn't show it at all. It looks just like any other student's apartment. And Jack's car is fairly new, but it's not anything fancy, and she wonders what's the issue there, or if Jack is just trying to make his own way.

A blinking number "4" on the answering machine catches her eye in this early-morning light. She'd noticed it last night, too, and she wonders who'd called, wonders who's left those four messages. What if there's some other girl?

Jack stirs slightly beside her and she rolls over to face him. He looks a little tongue-tied, bleary- eyed. He looks, frankly, hungover.

"Hey," she says softly.

Jack snuffles a little, still waking up, and then reaches out for her. She curls into his arms, and whatever awkwardness she'd felt last night seems to have melted away, at least for the time being. "Hi," he whispers back, into her hair. His arms tighten around her, almost too tight but it also feels nice, like someone finding her drowning and clamping onto her, tugging her toward a boat. "What are you doing today?"

"Studying for my last final?" They're talking so quietly, it's like they're still sleeping.

"You should study here," he mumbles.

"Yeah?" It's like he doesn't want to let her go, she marvels. It's almost a little bit amazing.

"Yeah. I can take you back, to get your books. A fresh change of clothes. But I have studying to do, too. Might as well do it together. One thing, though."

"What's that?"

"You'll have to make me breakfast this time." Jack cracks a grin like he's just made the funniest joke ever, and he really is pretty unfunny, but he's also awfully cute when he's amused.

But then the phone rings beside the bed, and Jack's eyes darken slightly. He hesitates for a moment. "Lemme just..." He rolls over, picks up the phone. "Hello?... No, this really isn't a - ...well, what do you want me to - you've gotta... No, I told you that was the last - well, I don't... - OK. What's the address?" Jack reaches out, shuffles through the end table, locates a pen, scribbles something onto his left hand. "Fine." He hangs up, exhales heavily. He waits a long moment before turning to face her. "My dad's gotten into a jam. I need to go pick him up."

She nods wordlessly.

"I'll drop you off on my way to get him. I'm sorry. I can't... I can't..." He looks like he's a mess, all of a sudden.

Juliet puts a hand on his arm. "Jack, it's OK." _Please don't be lying to me about who that was on the phone,_ she thinks. "It's not a problem."  
He drops her off outside her dorm, and she's hungry but mainly she really, really wants a shower. The building's still asleep, not even any voices echoing between the cinderblock walls.

She creeps into her room, and her roommate Sarah is still asleep, curled into a nest of blankets. Juliet finds her slightly damp towel (which means Sarah used it last night, probably - just awesome) and her shower caddy, lugs her stuff down the hall to the communal bathroom.

The bathroom is quiet, empty, an echoing tomb of blue and green tile. Refuge in 1960s Technicolor aqua. Five mirrors, spotted with age, angle out as they approach the ceiling. Spiders dart back into their private personal corners.

Juliet undresses quickly, wrapped a towel around herself in case someone walked in. Her hair still smells from sitting in that smoke-choked restaurant with Jack last night. She tiptoes to a sink to brush her teeth, tries to ignore her reflection in the mirror, pale, sallow, her eyes fatigue-ringed in purple. How come Jack could seem to find her so interesting when no one else in her life does? At least, he had until he'd dropped off her this morning. He'd been so quiet in the car.

Maybe going home would be a relief after all. Maybe then she could just fade into the background all over again.

Juliet turns on a shower, waits as the water makes its logical transition from cold to warm to hot. She steps in, washes her hair, watches her shampoo becomes streams of suds circling the drain.

She wonders if Jack will call before she leaves L.A. She wonders what she'll do if he does. (Or doesn't.)


	5. Overlook

_"So I'll walk the plank_,  
_and I'll jump with a smile._  
_If I'm gonna go down_  
_I'm gonna do it with style."_

- Ani DiFranco, Dilate

* * *

Exams are finally finally finally over, and by midnight of her last night in the dorms, Juliet's flopped over the edge of her bed, nearly drunk out of her mind and insanely relieved. Sarah's on her own bed across the room, making out with her boyfriend, Kevin Something.

Juliet knows they're both dying for her to leave, but she also feels like she's almost too drunk to walk anywhere at this point, and if she just goes downstairs to the student lounge, she's likely to fall asleep and/or pass out. And the last thing she needs on her record is a writeup for underage drinking.

So instead she halfway rolls over, burying her face into her comforter and flopping her arm over the edge of the bed, where it lands on a cardboard box. The storage company is coming in the morning to pick up most of her stuff, and she's got two huge suitcases to lug back to that delightful Sunshine State. Her flight is at 3 p.m.

The phone rings, and Sarah and Kevin just keep devouring each other's faces, but the phone is closer to them and Juliet's definitely more drunk. Finally Sarah heaves a huge sigh and lunges for the phone.

"What?" Sarah demands. "... Mm-hmm, yeah, hang on." Sarah holds out the phone demandingly. "Ju-ules..."

Who the hell could be...? Gemma had been out for the count hours ago. Juliet stumbles off her bed and across the room, takes the receiver from Sarah.

"Juliet?" Jack sounds a little breathless, a little desperate. "It's me. Jack."

Juliet closes her eyes in an attempt to get the room to stop spinning. "Hey."

"Listen, I'm really sorry about the other morning, it's just, my dad, he - what are you doing right now?"

She just wants to back to her bed and pass out, but she slides her eyes over to Sarah and Kevin approximately two feet away from her. Sarah's sitting there grumpily with her arms folded and Kevin looks both wasted and seriously ticked-off. "Um, nothing."

"Can I just - " Jack sucks in his breath, and is he _crying_ right now? "I really need to see you."

Juliet is struggling to comprehend what he's saying and she's not sure if it's because of the alcohol or the fact that he sounds weirdly emotional to someone he's spent less than ten hours awake with. "You mean now?"

"Can I come by?"

"I don't - my... my roommate is... I kind of need to get out of here for a little while." Sarah flashes her a grateful look.

"OK. Come outside. I'll be there in 15 minutes."

He's not going to drive her to some isolated wooded area and murder her, is he? Jack does sound weirdly unhinged right now.

Sarah and Kevin practically wave her out of the room like they're tour guides. Juliet stumbles into the hall, brushes her teeth and leaves her toothbrush in the bathroom, thinking she'll be lucky if it's still there and relatively untouched by morning.

Jack pulls up to the curb ten minutes late, and it looks like he hasn't slept in, well, in awhile. And he definitely hasn't shaved since the last time they saw each other. They don't say a whole lot, and he drives them to some overlook and she smirks to herself thinking he's a med student moonlighting as a serial killer. Charm freshmen, seduce them, cook for them, and then lower the boom. Sure.

Jack turns off the car and wraps his fingers tightly around the steering wheel, his jaw clenching and unclenching repeatedly. He smells faintly of alcohol and Juliet wonders if he should even be driving at all.

"Why is it," he finally begins, "that some people think you only exist just for them? That you're just there for them whenever they want?"

Isn't that sort of why she's here in this car with him in the first place? And she's still drunk and she doesn't trust herself to say the right thing. So she remains silent.

"And you tell them and tell them and TELL THEM that this is the last time, but they never believe you and sure enough, I just never have the fucking spine to stand up to him." Jack smacks the side of the steering wheel.

His father? Is that what this is about? Had Jack been telling the truth? But Juliet isn't exactly the right person to offer advice on dealing with parents, anyway. She chews on her lips and looks out over the lights of the valley below. If she lets herself think about her mother right now she could start crying again. So she thinks about the bio exam she took today, wonders if she got the extra credit question correct. And then that question at the bottom of the second page...

"Don't you just... Don't you ever have anything to SAY, Juliet?" Jack bursts out. "I know you must have some opinion in that pretty little head of yours."

Juliet turns to him very slowly. "I think that you're drunk, and you shouldn't be behind the wheel of this car right now, and you got me out of my room at midnight so you could rant about something you're not even telling me about. So if you'd like to start over, from the beginning, I'd like to hear what's the matter." It's probably the most she's said at one time in days. And the cool detachment of her voice is not something she's ever heard from herself. She feels a little shiver of something (power?) run up her spine.

Jack blinks. Juliet feels her lips turn up slightly, like she's reached some sort of unspecific victory. Not that one of them should win out over the other, just... Just like she's managed to hold her own.

"My dad's an alcoholic," Jack finally says. "That other night, the night we went out? He was out at some bar, drunk, and when he woke up in the morning, he was out at some house in the San Fernando Valley. He didn't have his wallet, so he couldn't take a cab home. And he didn't want my mom to find out."

She looks at him for a long time; she can feel the way her face crinkles up with something approaching concern. "I thought you said he was a neurosurgeon."

Jack swallows heavily. "Yeah. He is. It's, uh..."

"God," she whispers. He could kill someone.

"He's never shown up to work drunk, at least as far as I know. He'd lose his license if he did. It's just... the rest of the time."

She watches his face. He looks like he's tearing up a little. She's not sure how she's supposed to handle this, so she reaches out and grasps his hand. He holds on, tighter than is comfortable. "Thank you for coming out tonight," he finally says.

Later they mess around in the backseat of the car, but he doesn't have any protection and obviously neither does she. He sobers up more quickly than she does, drives them both back to his apartment. They screw for hours until she officially loses count of how many times she's had sex. She has beard burn all over her face, and also all over some more interesting areas, and she likes that, knows she will hug it to herself as a dirty little secret for the near future.

They get back in the car at 7. The sun's up, and she's starting to feel shaky from the sleep deprivation.

"How are we supposed to reconcile this in the fall?" Jack says suddenly, and she realizes he looks, what? Is he _sad?_ Juliet's seen a lot of unexpected things happen in her life, but they've unilaterally involved people getting further away from her. Not getting closer to her, or wanting to be.

"I don't know," she finally says, and she wonders if it's that she feels a thump in her heart when she looks at him, or that she feels a thump in her heart because anyone, _anyone_, could possibly be disappointed that she's going away. "Three months is a long time." She says this because it's the responsible thing to say. The way to protect herself.

Jack turns to her, keeping his left hand on the wheel still. "Can I call you in Florida?"

"I'm pretty sure they have phones there, so yes." She fishes through his glove box, trying to ignore the angry screech of a blood vessel in her head that started pulsating half an hour ago, and is it _always_ this bright in the early morning? Fucking hangovers. This is why she doesn't drink much during the semester.

But then Juliet finds a pen, reaches out for his hand this time, not a styrofoam cup on the floor, to write her father's condo's number. Except are the last two digits 15 or 51? Dammit, her head is really hurting and if the storage company is on time (not fucking likely, though) they'll be here in an hour, and she could really use a shower first.

She finishes scrawling the number, and his hand is hot in hers and a little sweaty because this morning is warm already, and... And and and? And what? What now? Are they supposed to kiss goodbye? Hug? But then he leans forward to kiss her, and his lips taste, well, they taste like _her, _is the thing, and she starts to blush even though she probably shouldn't, and she swings around and before she knows it, she's out of the car and stumbling inside.

* * *

**Key West, Summer 1989**

Key West in the summer is probably more miserable than hell. It's hot when it's not thunderstorming like it's some damn tropical island (except she supposes it sort of is, at least via Route 1) and her father works long hours and his girlfriend Stephanie is always around when he's home. Stephanie's actually not a bad _person_ or anything, or anyway she wouldn't be so annoying if she wasn't dating Dad, but she's also one of those women who thinks she needs to be friends with everyone, so that's not all that _good_, either.

But at least her father had taken Georgie after her mother died. Juliet brings him on long walks when the mornings are still cool and he sleeps on her bed every night. She likes to watch him dream, his muzzle twitching and his paws jerking like he's running after a rabbit.

Juliet turns 19 on June 4, but she's only been here for two weeks and has no friends, and Dad and Stephanie take her out to a nice restaurant and when they return to the condo community, Rachel's beat-up brown Nova is in in the parking lot.

_Shit._

Turns out Rachel had a huge fight with her live-in boyfriend, drove herself and the dog (his name is Xerxes and Juliet still can't fucking believe that one) 2400 miles to make a point, or something.

Dad's pissed, he'd told her not to move in with that loser in the first place, but Juliet's even_ more_ pissed because she hadn't spoken to Rachel in weeks. He goes to bed early. Stephanie goes home, for once.

_Happy fucking birthday._

Juliet pours herself a big glass of white wine and takes it out to the patio, listens to the water lapping at the edges of the pool, eight stories down.

The glass door slides open a few minutes later.

"Hey," Rachel says.

Juliet doesn't respond.

"Got any more of that wine?"

"On the counter."

Rachel eases back inside, returns with a red plastic cup. "Couldn't find the wine glasses."

"They're in the cabinet over the microwave."

"Oh. Didn't he used to have that wine cabinet thingy with the slats in it that you could hang the wine glasses upside down from?"

Juliet squeezes her eyes shut. "That was at mom's."

Rachel exhales, long and slow. "Fuck."

"You couldn't have stayed with friends?"

"_You _couldn't have?"

"Dad just assumed I was coming here this summer. So I did." Where else would she have gone, anyway?

"Well, I thought maybe it was time for a visit. You taking classes?"

"Yeah."

"Job?"

"Publix?" Like it's a question. Which it obviously isn't. Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays of asking people if they've found everything they're looking for today. Like they even know what they're looking for, really. Like she does. She'd love to bring her philosophy professor into the store sometime.

_"Again?"_ Rachel wrinkles her nose in distaste. "The pay is shit."

"The hours are convenient."

"You should bartend, I'm telling you, the tips are great, and with boobs like yours - "

"How long are you staying?" Juliet interrupts.

"Dunno. You have a boyfriend?" Rachel answers sharply.

"I've only been here two weeks. I'm going back in August. I..." Why does she sound so defensive? "Why didn't you ever call me back?"

"Look, I burned rubber to make it here in time for your birthday. Yesterday I figured there was no way in hell I was gonna make it and I barely slept. I drank, like, six cups of coffee. What more do you want?"

"You came here for _you. _Not for me." Juliet remembers all those solitary Chinese food nights while their mother was in the hospital. Then the hospice. She feels her anger rising.

Rachel takes a huge sip of wine, making a face. "This is warm."

"Too bad." (Why hasn't Jack called her yet?)_ "So?_ That wasn't an answer."

Rachel heaves an enormous sigh, like this is all taking a lot of effort from her. "I don't know, Julie. You used to never want to talk to me. Well, sometimes I need to get away from you, _too, _OK?_ God."_ She stands, tosses her wine away from them, out from the cup in a long, pale yellow arc. After a second they hear the splatter onto the sidewalk below. Rachel hurls the red plastic cup down after it as an afterthought. "Night. I'm not sleeping in your room or anything, by the way. I'll take the couch."

"OK," Juliet says into the darkness.

* * *

Rachel leaves the day after Juliet walks in on her fucking the building's hot blond lifeguard while he's on break.

In the middle of August, Juliet has sex with the lifeguard too. Just because she can. A week later, she can't recall anymore whether his name was Scott or Steve. She'd stopped going to the pool awhile ago anyway.

She gets A's on all her community college courses, even though the transfer credits only go to UCLA as "pass."

Jack never calls her.

She has his number still. She wishes she would lose it, but it's still in the inside pocket of her handbag. She supposes she could call him, but... But what? She doesn't know. She looks at her transcript and at that line of A's and she still feels stupid.

She misses her mother.

* * *

**UCLA, Fall 1989**

Jack doesn't show up for the first mentor program gathering. Juliet meets with her own mentor once a week as the plan requires, but the program as a whole is supposed to have a group meeting monthly. Gemma says he'll be at October's, though. _Perfect._

"Jack," Gemma declares as she slides into a seat in the cafeteria, "is hot."

"I guess so," Juliet says.

"Seriously, didn't you meet him at last year's thing? Why didn't you tell me how hot he is?"

Juliet smiles blandly. "I didn't really get to meet him or anything. Just saw him in passing." Funny how she'd planned to tell everything about it to Gemma at the time, then ended up telling her nothing. Better that way, right?

Gemma rolls her eyes. "I wonder if he dates undergrads." Maybe _not_ better that way...

Juliet tries to focus on eating so Gemma doesn't notice her blushing. Or cringing. Whatever. Gemma's not letting up, though. Finally Juliet says, "Don't you think that would be a really bad idea?"

Gemma shoves aside the rest of her lunch, takes out her compact, pokes at her hair. "Do I look OK? I'm meeting with him in 15 minutes."

Juliet wills herself to ignore the sad little whatever that rolls through her heart. "Yeah."

Gemma snaps her compact closed. "Well, I'm off like a prom dress."

"You wish."

"I _so_ wish." Gemma smirks. "Well, we have the program meeting tomorrow, so I'll see you there. You know, if I'm not too exhausted from screwing Jack." Gemma grins. It's not her fault. She has no idea.

"Don't do anything stupid," Juliet finally says.

"I won't if you won't."

_Too late for that._

* * *

Juliet's miraculously distracted at the meeting the following day; a couple of students had been invited into the program way-last-minute, and she volunteers to get them checked in and introduced to their mentors.

She notices Jack in her peripheral vision but betrays no outward reaction. Her knees feel like Jell-O anyway, and she holds onto her clipboard too tightly. She sticks close to the crappy, laminate-covered dark-brown fake-wood piece of junk of a desk and manages to keep out of the dumb games and pieces of advice and discussion of "learning styles" and whatever else.

Whenever Jack says something to the rest of the group, she stares down at the desk. But it kind of reminds her of the counters at his apartment, she remembers suddenly, and then she starts staring at a big potted plant next to where the program adviser is standing. _There, that's better._

Gemma stays away from Jack. Juliet wonders if something happened. She wonders if she can get away with never finding out.

Finally as everyone else is shuffling out, she finds herself trapped near the door as he approaches. He looks embarrassed, sheepish, sort of happy. Their eyes meet. She's really, really thirsty. She wonders when she can get out of here and find something to drink, and she needs to go study for her Orgo quiz tomorrow.

He speaks first. "I saw you earlier; you were helping those kids. I wanted to say something to you then, but..."

For some reason she automatically knows what she's supposed to say next. She smiles sadly. "We're not supposed to know each other."


	6. You Don't Know Anything

**Isn't it cute how I never know how long my stuff is going to end up? "No One Belongs Here More Than You" was supposed to be 24 chapters, and what happened? Well, I think we all know what happened.**

**And so this continues...**

_

* * *

"When I say you sucked my brain out_  
_the English translation_  
_is I am in love with you,_  
_and it is no fun."_

- Ani DiFranco, Dilate

* * *

For some reason Jack looks better than she'd remembered him, and she's not sure if that's good for her or bad for her, but at least he looks not so upset, not as stressed as the last time she'd seen him. Whenever that was. May something. But he also looks kind of flustered. _Well, good._

The last stragglers of the meeting are hovering, and she's leaning against the desk and he's right up against the door. They each take a step back so the others can leave, and Juliet notices Gemma give her a curious glance before her eyes darken and she disappears down the hall.

"How have you been?" he finally says. _Right. Sure._ She should have thought of that question. It;s a pretty damn obvious thing to ask.

"Fine," she says automatically, but it's also too quiet and he leans forward slightly as if to hear her better. "And you?"

"Uh... Good." There's a little too much emphasis on the second word, and Jack flushes slightly. "I tried to, ah, call you. Got the wrong number."

An imaginary ocean closes over Juliet's head, fills in her ears, and she flashes back to that hungover morning outside her dorm, trying to remember the phone number of her dad's condo. Jack had tried to call. (Jack had tried to call, Jack had tried to call, Jack had tried to call.) "I'm sorry," she says softly, embarrassed and trying to mask her obvious relief. "I... I must have written down the wrong number."

"I thought maybe you didn't want me to call you," he admits. "You never tried to call me."

Juliet trains her eyes on that potted plant over in the corner again, for just a moment. "I'm... I'm sorry. When I didn't hear from you, I -" She cuts herself off before it sounds like she was desperately waiting for his call or anything lame like that. She shrugs and licks her lips. They're so dry. She needs to find some Chapstick. Maybe there's some in her backpack. Oh no, wait, that was the old one.

"How's, uh, how's the semester going for you?"

"Fine. Busy. Orgo is..." - Jack nods understandingly. " - Well, it's a lot," she finishes lamely.

"Yeah. I remember. That was... That was pretty much the worst."

They nod in agreement, watching each other politely, and it's so quiet Juliet can practically hear the hands of the clock ticking on the wall. _Awesome_.

"Well," she finally says, hesitating. "I'm sorry I gave you the wrong number."

Jack nods, swallowing heavily. "I, uh... I met someone."

"Oh," she says too quickly, and she can tell the instant that single note has left her lips how hard she'd subconsciously tried to infuse that word with approval and acceptance. "That's great."

"I just, I met her over the Fourth of July and it just, it just sort of went from there." Jack twists where he stands, without moving his feet from where they're anchored.

"No, that's great, I'm really..." She's really _what_, exactly? She's really standing here in an uncomfortable skirt, digging her toes into her shoes, listening to the rattling of an unreliable state-school-issued air conditioner?

"She's, uh," Jack presses his fingertips to his temple. "She's, her name's Harper, she's a psychology student. She's great."

"I'm happy for you, Jack," Juliet manages, and it almost sounds believable.

"We could, you know. That doesn't mean we couldn't be friends."

Juliet remembers kissing him under his navy blue sheets, digging her knees into his rib cage, the feel of his mouth on her inner thigh. Remembers, too, that stupid overly tan lifeguard on the floor of her dad's condo. Oh, hell, it's not like she's been making the best decisions lately, anyway. She nods, not quite meeting his eyes.

Jack shifts from one foot to another. "No, really, I mean... What are you doing right now?" He says it like he's trying to take over, like he's issuing a challenge. Or a command.

"Now?" She's stalling for time.

"Yeah."

"I'm... I have a genetics lab in - " she leans backward slightly, glances at the clock, calculates to the next hour - "eight minutes." _Not true not true not true._

"Guess our timing is off," he says, and the slight smile on his face dies off when the words sink in for both of them.

"I've got to go," she tells him politely, but firmly. She gathers up her things without looking at him again.

* * *

She sleeps. She studies. She drinks. She begs Gemma's forgiveness.

She studies. She eats. She doesn't eat. She sleeps.

She leaves messages on Rachel's phone. Rachel is following Phish this fall, a housemate finally tells Juliet.

She takes midterms. She drinks. She sleeps.

She studies. She studies. She studies. She never cries. About anything.

It's awesome.

* * *

Gemma drops out of the pre-med track a week into November. At that month's meeting, Juliet feels untethered; she stays close to her annoying mentor and that's pretty much it. Except Jack is waiting for her when she walks out of the building.

"Hey," he says with a little toss of his head.

Juliet stops walking entirely. Her lungs hurt all of a sudden. "H-ii." It comes out weak. It comes out as two syllables. _Are you stalking me?_

"My mentee dropped out of the program."

"I know." _You don't know anything._

"You have lab today?"

She doesn't feel like lying. She shakes her head.

"Stopped talking?"

"No." _Stopped dating that girl with the funny name? "_I just don't have much to say right now."

"To me or to anyone?"

"Just... in general." She bites the inside of her lip. Is this going to go on like this forever? Some perpetual motion machine of neither of them saying anything real?

"How are you, Juliet?" he says softly, too softly, like he actually fucking _cares_ or something, and it feels a little bit like he's lifting her heart softly with a sharp instrument, dissecting her like he's wondering what's underneath there and instead finding just a hollow space. "About your mom? Have you been going to that group thing?"

Grief counseling? "I don't... I don't need that. I'm just, really busy, and..."

"Harper said that kind of thing can be really helpful."

It all happens at once, this steady crunching beneath her ribs, shattering whatever she thought was there. She advances on him until she's practically in his face, jamming a pointing finger at him and where is this even _coming_ from? - but she knows somehow it's _right_ and she's going to just let herself _do_ this. "I don't want you talking about me to her! I don't see why this is any of _your_ concern, Jack! What are you even doing here? Go mind your own goddamn business and stay out of mine!"

Jack moves his head away from her in surprise, without actually moving his body away from her. He blinks several times. "Juliet, I..." he stammers.

_Great, so you know my name. _Juliet clenches her jaw so tightly she thinks she hears the bones pop. She's shaking with anger, that he could even _think_ to know her, and when Jack's hands are on her upper arms suddenly, she thinks she's so furious she could punch him in the face. "What," she bites out, and somehow it's not at all a question. "What, Jack_. What."_

"I'm not seeing Harper anymore," he finally says, and it's almost like a whine, or a plea, she's not really sure, and her whole face hurts from not crying.

_Why not? _She closes her eyes, feels her face screwing up like a mewling little kitten, the blood is pounding under her skin and why should she be so drawn to him, still, after all these months? And why can't she just let him go? It's like something keeps pulling them together and pushing them apart. She lets herself ask it. "Why not?"

"Because I wanted to come here and see you today."

She opens her eyes and looks at him, and it strikes her then exactly how readable Jack's face is to her, more readable than any stack of books back in her room. Again and again it's like she knows him, his strengths and his weaknesses, wants to forgive him and wants to fucking _hit_ him at the same time, somehow. For once he doesn't blink too many times, and his eyes are almost green in this light.

"My father's in rehab," is what he says next, dropping his hands, and that's definitely not the followup she'd been expecting, but._ But what?_

"That's good," she says, approvingly, her heart hammering, and she's trying to pretend that it's not. But her voice is a little too shaky and, and_ and what?_ She's really thirsty. She has to read Chapter 16 in her physics text tonight.

Jack nods a couple of times, still looking at her. "What would you say if I asked you if we could start over?"

She's out of yellow highlighters so she'll have to use the green one, even though that's darker and it makes it harder to reread when she's studying late at night. "I don't know," she finally says, tilting her head, watching him. "Maybe you should try asking." She's trying to fake the cockiness, and her voice is still shaking a little, but maybe... maybe not as much.

"I'd like to take you out this weekend, on a proper date. You don't get to see the inside of my apartment after."

She feels a tiny smile spring to her face, and it relaxes all the muscles in her cheeks, and maybe her sinuses don't hurt as much as they did a minute or so ago. "And then what?"

"And then maybe, I'll try to kiss you goodnight."

Juliet presses her lips together. Trying to look, what? Not too happy? "And then what?"

"We'll figure it out."

"And how are we going to do that?"

He pauses, and then he leans forward and laces his fingers through hers. "Together."


	7. Death Stare Genesis

_"Every key works differently._  
_I forget every time."_

- Ani DiFranco, Dilate

* * *

Dinner and a movie: It's about as stereotypical a date as possible, although for some reason Jack finds it hilarious that she loves horror movies. (Her mom had loathed her horror-movie video rentals ever since they'd gotten their Betamax.) "You just don't seem the horror-movie _type,"_ he says. They're standing outside the theater in a thick night-time breeze, underneath the marquee.

Juliet tilts her head, wondering. "What type am I?"

Jack glances back up at the movie titles like her identity is something that could be listed on a menu. "I'm still trying to decide that, I guess."

_So am I,_ she thinks. But what he said surprises her; she can already tell that Jack usually prefers_ (needs)_ to make up his mind as quickly as possible, for better or worse. She mulls this over and then decides to risk tugging at his hand. "So will you see 'Halloween 5' with me or not?"

He looks back at her and smiles, squeezes her fingers. "That depends. Will you hold my hand at the scary parts?"

She gives herself an imaginary hug, that he _wants_ to hold her hand. "Only if you promise not to cry during them."

The movie turns out to be mind-bendingly awful, and she fully admits afterward that they should have seen "The Abyss" instead. Neither one of them gets to see many movies what with their schedules, because Jack seems to be about as manic about his studies as she is.

Later in the car, as he pulls up outside her building, her stomach lurches because she knows he's going to kiss her. And she wants him to and everything, but it's also been six months since that's happened between them and for some reason it means a little more to her now. Maybe a little more than it should. And she tries to distract herself by running down tomorrow's To Do list (load of whites, chapter 23 in genetics, meet with her group on the Latin project...) but it doesn't quite work.

Jack cuts the engine and turns to her a little more stiffly than she would have expected. Like he's nervous or something._ Nervous!_ "I had a good time tonight," he begins, and it almost sounds like the start of a brush-off, like there's about to be a _but_. Instead it's "What are you doing tomorrow night?"

She sits back slightly, surprised at his forwardness, but then technically they're not _new_ at this, or at least they've been here before, anyway. She's supposed to go to a party with some people, but... "Nothing much."

"I have an idea."

"Does it involve us not seeing 'Halloween 5' again?"

Jack grins. "How'd you guess?"

"I'm smart," she says boldly, lifting her chin, suddenly infused with a confidence she doesn't quite remember from before. It's all adrenaline but she sort of likes it, her heartrate revved up high like she's made herself jittery with too many cups of coffee.

He inches closer to her, but the center console of the car is still separating them. "Are you going to ask me what we're going to do tomorrow night?"

"Are you not going to tell me?" She senses he's the kind of person who thrives on springing surprises on others.

Jack grins again. "No," he sort of huffs, happily.

Annnd she's right. It's like he's trying to be controlling, but then she's also just a little intrigued that he cares enough about it to_ want_ to surprise her. But then this whole thing between them has been full of surprises, both the good kind and the bad kind, and she wonders if the balance will end up shifting. And if it does, which way it's going to go.

The entire time they're creeping closer to each other, and finally he leans down and kisses her, and she thinks, for some reason, of watching him behind thick glass.

* * *

The next night he drives them out to the Santa Monica pier. The lights on the carnival rides and the lines of food vendors make her think of being a kid again, like the kind of kid she was before her parents lowered the boom. The wind along the water is chilly and she pulls her cardigan around her arms more snugly. Jack reaches an arm around her, squeezes her opposite shoulder. "Got to keep you warm," he says. "This OK?"

She nods, drawing in closer to him.

"Think you'll be OK on the ferris wheel?"

Her heart skips a beat. "No way."

"What? Don't tell me you're afraid of heights." Jack smiles like he's never heard of something so silly.

"No. I'm afraid of falling." She means it to sound humorous, but the truth is... How many times has she had that nightmare? She knows falling dreams are common, something about the brain not quite being willing to drop off into sleep. But you're not supposed to hit the bottom, and in hers, she always does. Wakes up coughing imaginary blood.

"Come on, it'll be fine." He takes a step toward it, tugs at her arm.

She stays put, her legs slightly apart and bracing against the wood, her knees locked. "Jack, I'm serious."

He stands there like he can't imagine her saying no to him. "Juliet, I'll be right there with - "

_"No, _Jack." And he tugs on her hand again. Why is it so hard for him to respect her wishes? She can feel her face hardening, and she thinks about all the times in her life she's just given in to what the other person wanted, given in and given in and given in, and kept her mouth shut and kept whatever witty retorts to herself, and she feels some strange pressure against her lungs telling her that she _needs_ to stop always doing that or her life is going to end up being a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

And now, more tonight than ever before, there's this nagging little doubt about Jack, somewhere in the back of her head. That someone who clearly needs to control situations the way Jack does can't possibly be good for someone like her. Unless she learns to stop being so silent all the time. Or at least to somehow leverage that silence into something intimidating and demonstrative in its own way.

(And why is she waging psychological battles with someone she _likes, _on a _date? _This can't be a good sign for a relationship, can it?_) _

She likes him, but she needs to like herself more._  
_

So she stands there, looking him straight in the eye without blinking, until he relents.

* * *

They see each other four times in eight days, and they manage to hold off on sex until the third date this time around, which seems like an improvement of sorts. He calls her pretty much every night, and Juliet actually starts to think that maybe this is going to work out after all.

She pretty much floats into her dorm room late Saturday morning, still on a high. Her roommate Penny rolls over in bed. "Your sister called," Penny groans into her pillow. "At _eight."_

Juliet is flooded with pathetic hope. "I'm really sorry. Did she leave a number?"

"She... she said she'd call back." Penny closes her eyes and rolls over to face the wall.

Juliet hesitates, standing in the middle of the room. Jack's waiting with the car downstairs, and she's supposed to gather her books and go back to his place for a wholesome day of studying, punctuated (she hopes) with sex. So, what now? Is she just supposed to wait around for Rachel's stupid call? Why hadn't Rachel just left a number? And Juliet can't really just have Jack study in her room; Penny's still sleeping (or more accurately, _trying_ to sleep) and anyway there's even less space here than at Jack's apartment.

"Pen?" she whispers finally.

"Mrmph..."

"I have to go. Could you just make her give you a number if she calls back?"

"Yeah," Penny mumbles.

Juliet gets her stuff together as quietly as she can, slipping two textbooks and her notes into her backpack. She's just about to dart across the hall to brush her teeth when the phone rings. She hurries over to grab it before Penny's brain explodes or something. "Hello?" she whispers.

"Julie?"

"Yeah. What's going on?"

"Why are you whispering?" Rachel whispers at her sarcastically.

"My roommate is sleeping. What is it?" She twists the phone cord around her fingers anxiously.

"Uh... You mind if I drop in on you for a bit? Stay with you for like a couple days?"

"What? When?"

"In like... two hours?"

Juliet frowns. "What? Where are you?"

"We're around San Diego right now. They're going up to Topanga but I feel like shit. Could really use a shower and a place to crash for awhile."

"You said a couple days?"

"Yeah, I think. Unless they go somewhere else up north after."

_Oh, _so now she's just supposed to drop everything for her so-called sister? "I'm really pretty busy," she says coolly, even though it almost makes her stomach twist to use that tone.

Rachel snorts. "Oh, come on. You're like the only one I know in the area and I really need a break from these dumbasses once in a while."

"Who are you with?"

"No one you know. Just a couple friends. I'm just, like, really tired. I'll totally buy you food and stuff. _Please_, Julie."

"You'll be here in two hours?"

"Yeah. Pleeeeease just do me this favor."

Juliet sucks on the inside of her cheek. Isn't she supposed to be standing up for herself more? And yet she knows - _has_ known - since Rachel firs asked her, that she's going to give in and there's a part of her that hates herself for it, but then she'd probably hate herself more for not letting Rachel come. And then she'd probably suffer through another few months or years of unreturned phone calls. Although why should she even _care_ so much? "OK, but you have to sleep on the floor. We don't have a couch or anything."

"Thank you thank you thank yooou," Rachel crows. "I have a sleeping bag. But can I at least sleep in your bed if you're not there?"

"How long have you been traveling around? You've been camping?"

"Yeah. Like three or four weeks."

_Disgusting. _Rachel's practically living in the wild. Juliet could never ever handle something like that. She sighs. "You can sleep in my bed if you take at least two showers."

* * *

Jack's silver Camry is idling at the curb. She sticks her head in the window and he looks confused. "Jack, I'm sorry," she begins.

He frowns. "What's wrong?"

"My sister called. She needs a place to stay. She's coming in two hours."

He leans back, suspicious. "I didn't know you had a sister."

"Rachel. She's three years older than me."

"Why haven't you ever mentioned her?"

She shifts from one foot to the another. "I don't know. We don't get along."

"She still in school?"

"No."

"What does she do?"

_Wastes oxygen. _"She moved to Flagstaff to go to NAU but then she dropped out. She bartends, I think. Or she was, anyway. She's been following Phish this fall."

Jack cracks a grin like this is the most ridiculously unbelievable thing she could have ever said. "You're kidding."

She shakes her head.

"And you had the same parents?"

"Jack."

"Sorry. It's just... I can't even picture you having a sister like that."

Juliet gives up on maintaining a distance, opens the car door and drops into the passenger seat. "It's funny, because until she dropped out of college she was always my parents' favorite."

"So is that why you don't get along?"

She shakes her head. "I don't know. We never did. I don't think she likes me."

"I'm sure she _likes_ you, Juliet. She's your _sister."_

"Well, you don't have a sister, do you, Jack?" She already knows he's an only child. If it weren't for the fact that he'd previously told her this, she'd probably still be able to tell.

"No. No I don't," he assents.

Juliet purses her lips, squints into the sunlight filtering through the windshield. "It's like she blames me for something I did that I don't even remember."


	8. Teams

**Ha, I screwed up big-time on the World Series stuff. Thanks to makealist for the correction!**

* * *

_"And I learn every room long enough_  
_to make it to the door_  
_and then I hear it click shut behind me_."

- Ani DiFranco, "Dilate"

* * *

Jack shakes his head. "She blames you for something you don't even remember? What, like being born?"

Juliet barely holds back from rolling her eyes. "I don't know. I didn't mean..." The year she was seven, something started changing between them. Her birthday was fine, Rachel blew up all the balloons for her party, even. And then the next month... it was like it was just _over_ for them. And Rachel had a lot of nightmares that summer. She would wake up screaming, rousing the whole house, and she would never say what the dreams were about. Their parents sent Rachel to therapy for awhile anyway.

And then Rachel had refused to watch the Peanuts special on TV that fall with her even though Juliet begged her for days, promising they both could use her allowance for candy. Her sister had told her she didn't want to watch with her _because I hate you._ And that was so long ago, and it shouldn't still hurt, but it does, and none of it makes any real sense to her. "Well, she's coming in two hours, anyway."

"I'm going to stick around and meet this sister of yours," Jack declares. Really, he doesn't say it or ask it; he just declares it like any other accepted fact. The sky is blue. They go to UCLA. He's six foot two. They both like red wine. She was born 6/4/70. Facts.

But his declaration surprises her, makes her wonder. Why is he doing this, does he not believe her, does he just want to meet Rachel, and why is he just deciding this on his own without asking her if it's even OK with her in the first place? "OK," she says, like he'd asked for permission even though he obviously hasn't.

Jack finds a parking space; they get bagels, coffee, a copy of the LA Times from the cafeteria; they sit down on a bench outside her building. She'd invite him in except Penny is probably still sleeping, and anyway, Juliet tends to like to keep her personal life, well, _personal_. Although it seems like it's all doing a good-enough job of colliding in on itself this morning.

They divide up the paper and sit sipping in silence like it's the most natural thing in the world, the two of them here on this dry and splintering bench. He reads the front section and she reads Metro and then they switch. She has no desire for the sports section. "You must have a baseball team," he tries.

_Not really. _"The Dodgers, I guess."

"Because you're in LA," he says skeptically.

"Well, I never knew I needed to have a team before. So I pick the Dodgers."

Jack blinks in disbelief. "I can't believe you don't have a team."

"I come from a family of nerds. What's your team, Jack?"

"Red Sox."

"Aren't they the ones who haven't won a World Series since World War I?"

Jack's nostrils flare slightly. "So you do know _something_ about baseball."

Juliet takes another sip of her coffee. "Well, apparently you don't since you're rooting for the wrong team."

"Do you even know the last time the Dodgers won the series?"

"No idea." She's bluffing. She knows they won last year.

Jack laughs. "So for all you know, it could be World War I for them, too."

"Weren't they in Brooklyn back then?" See, she does know something.

"Even so."

She gives in. "I did live in LA last year, you know."

Jack cringes, then smiles at her, maybe a little condescendingly. "They've won in '81 too. The pennant five times since '74. And the Western Division title in '74 and '77, in case you were wondering. These are things you should know if they're going to be your team."

She wouldn't have taken him for a stats nut. "I hope you know as much about medicine as you know about baseball, or you're going to end up with some serious malpractice suits."

"The Red Sox are the greatest team in history," Jack says firmly. "Ted Williams, Cy Young? Carl Yastrzemski? Roger Clemens? C'mon, _Babe Ruth?"_

"Wasn't he on the Yankees?"

"He was on the Red Sox first," Jack mutters sulkily.

"Too bad my team's the Dodgers now," Juliet says airily, and turns back to the features section, but Jack keeps talking.

"You know, I think we'll have to go to a game sometime."

"When the Red Sox play the Dodgers?"

Jack smiles comically, almost indulgently. "That doesn't happen, they play in different leagues. I just meant the Dodgers. Since they're your team and all."

She hadn't been kidding when she'd said she was from a family of nerds. They'd never done anything like that. Her dad used to take them on nature walks so they could compare fungi, for god's sake. Of course, that was back when he still bothered with them. "So I'm a baseball fan now?"

He nods, his decision clear and firm. Everything is always so... _decided_, to him. "You have a team. That makes you one of_ us."_

* * *

After an hour, Juliet creeps upstairs experimentally. Penny's awake, studying in her sweatpants. Jack goes back to his place to get his books, comes back an hour after that. Pen looks intrigued but doesn't say anything past standard introductions. Obviously Juliet hadn't slept in their room last night. Or Thursday night, for that matter.

The three of them lapse into silence, but Juliet can't really focus on her notes, Penny and Jack are both the kind of people who need to study with music playing, and she can't read over her formulas for Orgo and mentally sing along with Alice in Chains lyrics at the same time. Besides she keeps waiting for the phone to ring.

She should have fucking known Rachel would be late.

After another hour, Penny leaves to take a shower. Juliet looks across the room at Jack, who's sprawled out on her bed, and really, this desk chair is kind of uncomfortable anyway...

He obviously gets what she's thinking, and shifts slightly, making more room for her "Come here," he instructs, and she pushes away from the desk, approaches him on wobbly legs. Jack sits up, pulls her to him. She stands in front of him, and he wraps his arms around her hips, lifts her shirt just a little and kisses the skin under her navel. "You're beautiful," he breathes into her skin, and she feels her knees weaken.

"No," she whispers. Objectively she understands what she sees in the mirror, but she also understands the years of school she spent being ignored, teased, screamed at or mocked for one thing or another. That asshole senior who called her Tits McGee every single day of her junior year. She'd stabbed a screwdriver into his right rear tire on the last day of school that year, had contemplated writing, "Love, Tits" on his windshield in lipstick before she ran back into the building, shaking with the knowledge of what she'd just done. (She didn't get caught. Her heart pounded for days afterward, anyway.)

_"Yes," _Jack whispers back, brushing his lips across her stomach again before pulling her down into a kiss, and she wonders what she's done to deserve this, here, now, before she's up and locking the door, pulling off her shirt before returning to the bed.

She's under him and they're panting, him biting into the skin between her neck and shoulder, when the doorknob rattles and they both freeze. "Oh, _c'mon,_ Jules!" Penny whines out from the hallway, but Juliet is shaking under him and it's not from embarrassment. Or at least, not _entirely_ from embarrassment.

"Can you - " Juliet begins, but then Jack shifts his hips over her and she has to squeeze her eyes shut to compose herself, remembering at least Pen had taken a change of clean clothes with her to the showers. "Can you come back a little later?" she calls out to the door, remembering all the times last year Sarah had done this exact thing to her. And how she'd utterly and completely loathed Sarah for it.

"Oh. My. _God!"_ Penny declares. "Jesus, I was gone for TEN MINUTES."

OK, now Juliet _is_ seriously embarrassed, blushing furiously red and rethinking this whole thing. But Jack looks down at her, smiling, and presses a finger over her lips.

"She'll go away," he whispers.

"I'm coming back in an hour," Penny calls through the door.

"I feel horrible," Juliet murmurs back to Jack.

Jack buries his face into her neck and all of a sudden they're both shaking with laughter, but he manages to find her lips after that anyway. Except two or three minutes later the phone rings and they both cringe. "Don't answer it," Jack groans, his fingers tightening on her hip.

_Shit. Shit shit shit. This was so not a good idea._ "It's my - " she begins. The intercom downstairs is hooked up to their phone line.

"Don't," he pleads. "Don't. Stay. She can wait." His face is so desperate, so needy, and they're here and he wants _her_, and no one has really wanted her before, in this or any other way, and what the fuck has her sister ever done except push her away and push her away and push her away?

Juliet tightens her arms around him and lets the phone ring.

* * *

Rachel looks like shit. Her hair is matted up and twisted into a messy bun, and she stands from her seat on the front steps when Juliet comes out. She's wearing a patchwork hippie skirt, a gray T-shirt that might have once been lavender, a loose-fitting hooded sweatshirt, half-zipped.

"Where the hell have you been?"

Juliet's still a little out of breath (and she tells herself that Rachel will think it's because she just ran down the stairs). "Sorry, I missed the phone the first time."

_What about the second and third?_ she can tell Rachel wants to ask. Her sister narrows her eyes, but leans over to give her a quick hug. Juliet is surprised by this, hangs on a little longer than she probably should. "Whatever. Thanks for letting me crash here." She bends down, struggles to pick up a stuffed green duffel. Juliet remembers this bag, dark green, one their mother had bought for Rachel when she was leaving for college. There's a darker rectangle of fabric where the L.L. Bean logo had been torn off. "You think you could get my sleeping bag?"

Juliet nods, reaches down for it.

Rachel cranes her neck up, surveying the dorm. "Nice place ya got here."

Juliet doesn't say anything. She's been in college almost three entire semesters now, and she highly doubts Rachel would have ever visited her if she hadn't needed a place to stay. They go inside, Juliet bearing toward the right, to the stairs. Rachel veers left, toward the elevator.

"It's broken."

"What floor do you live on? This thing weighs a ton."

"Fourth."

Rachel is clearly struggling by the time they're at the third floor, her breathing shallow, her pace slowing. Juliet turns to her in the stairwell, and her sister's face is pale. What, is she too worn out from doing drugs and dancing en masse with strangers at music festivals? What a tough fucking life she has. "Give me that thing."

Rachel purses her lips, shifts, hands it over. Juliet turns, catches the handles on her right shoulder. For some reason she's always had problems with her left one, even though the doctors couldn't figure out why the muscles are all stretched out the way they are. Her mother had thought maybe Juliet had hung from the monkey bars too long, but they said something that simple couldn't have done it. ("You're defective," Rachel had declared, and Juliet had cried. She was ten then, too old for crying.)

They reach her floor and Juliet's heart skips a beat as she opens the door. Her bed is made neatly, the pale blue comforter folded over, displaying a strip of soft green sheets, and Jack is sitting at her desk, highlighting in a textbook. He swivels toward them, smiling politely. "Hey."

Rachel takes one step into the room and pauses. "Well. Hello there." Her tone is a little bit resigned, a little bit mocking.

Juliet's mouth goes dry. Why had Jack insisted on staying? Why does she have to do this? "Rachel, this is Jack Shepherd. Jack, my sister."

"Roommate?" Rachel says sarcastically.

Jack rises, leans forward across the small room, shakes Rachel's hand. "Juliet's boyfriend," he says smoothly, and Juliet sees the surprise on Rachel's face, knows her own face might be reflecting surprise too. Is he saying that because he means it? Because he wants it to be true? Because it_ is _true? Because he's staking his claim? Because telling Rachel that even though she's her sister, _he's_ the one who cares about her?

"Huh," Rachel marvels, returning his handshake. "Nice to meet you." She turns back to Juliet. "You mind if I take a shower and then pass out?"

"That's fine. We're just studying."

Rachel's eyes flick back over Jack appraisingly. Juliet loves this green T-shirt on him; she moves her eyes across Jack's biceps and smiles inwardly before crashing right back to awkward reality.

"Where are you from?" Rachel asks.

Jack raises his head a little. "Here."

"What's your major?" Her voice is a little bit sly.

"I'm a second-year med student."

Rachel nods. "So my baby sis found herself an older man. You looked too old to be an undergrad."

Juliet grinds her teeth together. He's only four years older than her, what's the big deal? She lifts her plastic shower caddy from the shelf over her desk, extends it to her sister. "Here."

"Thanks." Rachel smirks, takes the caddy, then bends and digs through her duffel. Juliet's not sure where to place her eyes, she doesn't think she can look at Jack, doesn't know what any of them are thinking, least of all herself. Right now she would pretty much rather be anywhere than here, sandwiched between the two people who probably know her the best and know her the least all at once, and she feels too transparent, like she's going to float away. She concentrates on the flecks of color in the shitty linoleum floor, counts her breaths to five.

Rachel kicks off her Birkenstocks, starts to shrugs off her sweatshirt and then stops, pulls it back on. "Thanks," she repeats, and hefts the shower caddy like it weighs more than it actually does, and Juliet tries to process what she'd just seen. She sucks in her breath as the image sinks in after the fact, Rachel's bare arms dotted with bruises fresh and fading, yellow, purple, greenish. But before she can even be sure of what she just saw, her sister turns and is out the door.

* * *

Later Rachel practically does pass out in Juliet's bed. Juliet and Jack read their texts in quiet unison like the Good People of the World that they are supposed to be. She's tense and he keeps sneaking little looks at her like he knows it.

"You wanna get out of here for awhile?" he finally asks softly.

She nods. Realizes she's stopped talking again.

* * *

**Please leave a review! You do NOT need to have a FF net account to post on my stories!**


	9. I Needed You

_'Everyone has a skeleton_  
_and a closet to keep it in_  
_and you're mine."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Dilate" 

* * *

Juliet is practically hyperventilating by the time the get outside. "Did you see those bruises on her?" she bursts out, a step away from crying.

Jack catches her by the arm. "Yeah. Yeah, I did."

"How could someone do that to her? How could - how could someone hurt my sister?"

Jack shakes his head, his jaw clenching. "I don't know."

"Those bruises were all different ages - I - " Juliet sits down on the steps and buries her face into her elbow. She thought Rachel had left that asshole back last summer. Not that Rachel had ever said he'd hit her, just that he was a selfish, immature prick. So maybe it's not him? Someone else? Why had Rachel just left her friends like that? Juliet's heart is pounding against her rib cage; this isn't happening, she doesn't care how much of a bitch Rachel's been to her. "Someone is hurting my sister!" she practically cries out. She squeezes her eyes shut tight against the skin on the inside of her elbow, seeing only blackness.

But she feels Jack sit down next to her, reaching for her and guiding her around to face him, even though she's still curled into a ball, and he wraps his arms around her.

She keeps her eyes closed against him, trying to think about anything anything anything else, she needs more shampoo, her genetics lab report is due on Tuesday, she told Gemma she'd go shopping with her tomorrow, she needs to check her meal plan balance, anything anything anything that is not this right now.

"I thought maybe - " Jack begins, then hesitates.

Juliet wills herself to open her eyes, looks up at him. "What?" she asks softly.

"Maybe she might be into hard drugs."

"My sister wouldn't do that," Juliet says automatically. Even though it's not necessarily true, and really, what does she even know about her sister anymore, really? "Jack," she says more firmly. "She wouldn't."

"I'm just saying, the bruising, different ages, it's possible, with her lifestyle - "

"With her_ lifestyle?"_ she bursts out, almost mocking. "What, you mean because she's not lik_e us? _Not everyone is the same, Jack. Just because she does things differently doesn't mean...!" Where is this even coming from? For ages now she's basically considered Rachel a waste of space. A waste of space she still (for some pathetically inexplicable reason) wanted in her life, but even so - this is her sister, and it angers her that Jack's judging her sister like this.

"I just meant..." Jack frowns, because it's clear to both of them what he'd meant. "Well, whatever it is, she's here, that's a good sign. If someone was hurting her, she's away from him now. Or away from the drugs. So we're just going to have to make sure that we keep her away from - from whatever it is."

_We._ She notices what he says and remembers what he'd said earlier, calling himself her boyfriend, and she feels suddenly like for once in her life she has an anchor, something keeping her from just drifting away, and her feelings shift completely, all over again.

Sometimes she feels like she's two different people when she's with him.

Juliet uncoils her arms from around herself, lets them fall around him instead. She sags against him, trying not to cry, but then Jack starts petting her hair and the dam breaks. She cries against him, angry barking sobs that shake her entire body. "I - I can't - " How could someone do that to her sister? What is she supposed to do now?

"It's OK," he tells her over and over until she starts to believe it. "It's OK." 

* * *

Rachel sleeps for ages. Eventually Jack has to leave because his mother is expecting him for dinner tonight, and with his father still in rehab, he doesn't want to break the plans. "I can be back here in twenty minutes if you need me," he tells Juliet. He's trying to sound soothing, and she's pretending that he does. "But you _need_ to confront her about this. She needs to know that whatever got her to this point can't keep going on."

She nods, trying to look more brave than she feels, assuming that he can see through her mask anyway. "Thank you." Why did he say "we" if he's just going to leave? What's the point of this? Is he here for her, or not?

Jack leans in to kiss her, and she wonders what he sees in her, she's a mess, really, but then it feels like he is too, in his own way, and she closes her eyes and leans against him for as long as she dares.

She feels a little pang of abandonment anyway, watching him walk down the street toward his car. Toward his own problems.

* * *

Rachel starts to stir somewhere after eight "Mmph," she mumbles. "Real beds are fucking awesome."

Juliet looks up from The Dark Half. She doesn't even know what she's supposed to do, really. "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah."

"There's a cafeteria next door."

Rachel rubs at her face. "Can't we just order something?"

"If you're buying."

"My wallet's in the outside pocket of my bag." Rachel doesn't make a move, so finally Juliet gets up, finds Rachel's wallet, surveys what she has. Either Rachel really does get great tips, or Dad is still sending her money. Or she's selling drugs. Jack's words from earlier ring in her ears. Juliet's never minded a little pot, hey, she's a college student, even if she's a sort of a nerdy one, but this is so not OK, especially if some drug dealer is after Rachel and he's waiting outside the dorm right now and he's going to murder them in their sleep. Fantastic.

_At least then I'll never have to pay off my student loans._

Juliet waits until they're swirling their chopsticks around lo mein, waits until "The Golden Girls" cuts to commercial. "Rachel..."

"This show is idiotic," Rachel says.

Juliet loves it, but what the fuck would Rachel know about female companionship, anyway, so she just shrugs. She doesn't know where the next thing out of her mouth comes from. "Why didn't you ever come visit me before?"

"You never invited me before."

"I didn't think I'd have to."

"Well, you never came to visit me, either."

"You never even return my calls."

Rachel sighs. "Julie, why do you always, always have to turn everything into some big huge deal?"

_When have I ever once turned ANYTHING into a big huge deal_, she thinks, and pokes at her noodles. "It's just... If you..." She stares at the TV. Some commercial about fabric softener, the fuzzy teddy bear dancing around in the sheets. "If there's something wrong..."

"What are you talking about? Nothing's wrong," Rachel says firmly.

Juliet tucks her chopsticks into the carton, turns to her sister. "Rachel, I saw the bruises on your arms. Don't - you can't - you can't act like there isn't something going on."

Rachel's face twitches for just the tiniest of seconds. "Nothing's going on. I just, I just bruise easily, OK? I know it looks like shit."

"They just looked..." God, she wishes Jack were here for this. Or if only the phone could ring, oh, like, riiiiiiight fucking now.

"Nothing's going on," Rachel repeats, more firmly.

"Then why are you getting so defensive?"

"Because you're not letting this drop! It's nothing, it's just, I just..."

Juliet feels a lump in her throat. "Is someone - did someone hit you?"

"What? Oh my _god! _No, of course not. Julie, you're being ridiculous. I think you watched one too many after-school specials." Rachel's eyes look bright and jumpy.

"Jack said..." She stops herself.

_"Jack_ said? Jack said what? Who is this guy, anyway? You think he's good for you?" Rachel challenges.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, let's see. He's like four years older than you, for one. He seems nice, but he also seems, I dunno... kind of joyless, don't you think?"

"He's a med student. He's... Med school isn't exactly a joyful time, from what I've heard."

Rachel wrinkles her nose. "He seems kind of controlling."

_Or maybe he's the only person who ever even seems to give a damn about me. At least for a little awhile, anyway. Until he leaves when I needed him. _Something in her chest seems to contract then. "What do you even know about this, Rachel? You've only been around him for like fifteen minutes while you were awake."

"And NOW who's getting defensive? You're being fucking ridiculous!" Rachel swings her arm out toward Juliet, forgetting about her can of Coke, knocking it across Juliet's bedspread.

"Shit!" Juliet bursts out, and they both dive off the bed. Juliet knocks over her lo mein while they're at it, and that's the end of the discussion.

_I needed you,_ she thinks to an invisible Jack.

* * *

Rachel leaves a note in the morning.


	10. But Only Maybe

_"I don't use words like love_  
_'cause words like that don't matter_  
_but don't look so offended._  
_You know, you should be flattered."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Dilate"

* * *

**Spring 1990**

"Where... _are_ you?"

Juliet rolls the spoon over her tongue, pulls it from her mouth. Smiles. "In bed, with you." She dips the spoon back into the carton, holds it out to him.

Jack chuckles, leans forward, takes the bite of ice cream and then kisses her bare knee. His mouth is freezing, and she shivers a little.

"I was just thinking," he says. "Stay here this summer. Stay with me."

She pauses, not sure what to say. It's true she's trying to avoid going back to her dad's this summer. He and Stephanie had moved in together, and Stephanie's (obnoxious, she might add) 20-year-old son was spending the summer there, too, and she'd been trying to find a summer sublet here in L.A. Except she's doubtful she could afford a sublet... but she's also not quite sure it would be such a great idea to spend three months living in four hundred square feet with Jack. "Yeah?" she says, stalling for time, her heart fluttering in protest because it stupidly thinks she should be saying _yes yes yes of course_.

"You're always here. I want you here." Jack threads his fingers with hers. "It just makes sense."

It doesn't matter what's a good or bad idea, does it? Really? It would be just for the summer. She's signed up for a single room next year, can't wait to be rid of roommates. Penny's been much better than Sarah, and at least this year she's spend a lot of nights with Jack, but she's been craving solitude, never quite has any. Not that she'd have any here, either, and her confusion intensifies. "You don't think this place is too small?"

"We'll make it work," he declares. "Besides, you need to get a real job this summer. You know, my aunt Jeannie, the one who works for the box company? She's looking for summer temps."

"I like working at the grocery store," she says softly. That's not even remotely true, but a summer spent hunting and pecking over computer keys sounds far worse than ringing up people's tomatoes and chicken cutlets.

He shakes his head. "I'll give Jeannie your number. It'll be better, you don't need to be making four dollars an hour, and -" He's cut off by the phone, sighs heavily and arches away from the bed. The moment's expired, and she tucks the lid back over the ice cream carton, bringing it and the dirty spoon into the kitchen area. Jack's talking in a low voice and she turns on the water, waits for it to turn hot.

Three low glasses sit in the sink, sticky brown residue at the bottoms. She glances in the garbage at the discarded liquor bottles, sighing inwardly. Yep, the moment has _definitely_ expired. She and Penny had gone to see Penny's cousins in San Diego last weekend, and she's willing to bet Jack didn't have such a good time by himself.

A little pang of worry rolls through her. Maybe if anything, she should stay because he needs her. His father had come out of rehab in early December, stuck with AA for about eight weeks before falling off the wagon again. Jack hasn't been taking it well.

The one family dinner she'd attended, he and his father had ended up yelling at each other, and she'd just sunk lower and lower in her seat reciting chemistry formulas in her head until Margo started clearing plates and she'd eased up to help her.

"And what do your parents do?" Margo had asked her, running the water hard like they couldn't hear Christian lecturing Jack on the real reason he shouldn't go into oncology. Something about his perceived bedside manner, him not being able to cut it, deal with the pressure, blah blah fucking blah.

Juliet blanched, wondering why Jack hadn't told his parents or warned them how much she hated that question, the one she always ran from or lied about. Instead she went over her grocery list in her head staring at Margo, waiting it out and leveling her emotions. "My biological father left before I was born. The man I call my father, he adopted us when I was two. After he and my mom got divorced, I think he sort of lost interest. He lives in Key West and sells insurance. And my mom had cancer. And then she died." Margo is practically gaping at her, Juliet notices with a sort of sick satisfaction, so she just smiles politely. "I'll go in and get the rest of the plates."

Now Jack practically slams the phone down, jerking her attention back, and she looks down at the dishes in the sink. Juliet had never washed dishes in the nude until Jack, but there are a lot of things she never really did until Jack, so she just grabs a sponge, watches him through her lashes. Jack's breathing too fast, aggravated.

She's not going to ask.

"Rotations," he huffs. He's been trying to set up his schedule for the fall and it hasn't been going well, that much she knows.

"Oh." And there. _How_ is she supposed to stick around here this summer in this tiny little box with him? She wants to get out of here right fucking now, but she's naked and is washing dishes and doesn't have a car and anyway, where else is she supposed to want to be, anyway? Jack is supposed to be her anchor. It's been six months, almost seven. They're supposed to be happy.

Jack rolls off the bed, picks up his boxers, jeans, T-shirt, balls up a handful of fabric in each fist. He goes into the bathroom, shuts the door. The shower starts up, and all she wants to do is just crawl back to bed and go to sleep. They'd been up so late last night, at a party with some of her friends, and Jack hadn't even wanted to go. She'd dragged him anyway and then he'd been sort of sulky about it. Then this morning she'd gotten up early for a study group that had ended up being canceled, mainly thanks to her slacker lab partner.

So instead she'd spent half the day in bed with Jack, which was how she spent an awful lot of her weekends. And weeknights. She hadn't seen most of her friends in forever, at least until last night's party. For awhile they cared enough, knew to just call her at Jack's, but they've sort of stopped calling by now. It's just that there's plenty to take care of at the apartment here, and Jack didn't like hanging out with her friends, he said they were too immature, or anyway, they made him feel too old, and she knows what he means, but...

But something. She doesn't know.

Just... _something._

The dishes finished, she finds her T-shirt, the pair of sweatpants she keeps at Jack's. Grabs her biochem textbook and curls up on the couch. But she's lulled by the sound of the shower, the hum of the air conditioner, and the words on the page almost immediately start to swim before her eyes and she's watching Jack in greenish light, except he's older and she's holding a tray with a sandwich on it, and then she's standing in a clearing, electrocuting a scruffy blond man, and then Jack is lying in a tent unconscious and she's slicing into his abdomen with a scalpel. "I got a surgery placement at Columbia," he says. "But I have to stay for pediatrics, too, and it's four months."

Juliet jerks herself out of sleep. Her textbook is lying open on her chest. Jack's sitting on the couch next to her, his arm snaking across her, his hand on the hip further away from him. "What?" She's so confused right now.

"I'd applied for a rotation at Columbia. I didn't want to say anything in case it didn't pan out. I found out on Friday, it's a last-minute offer. But the catch is that I'd have to do it when I was scheduled for peds here. And the only way I can avoid falling behind is if I do peds in New York, too." His face is crinkled up in a struggle.

Her head hurts a little and her mouth is dry and how long did he let her sleep for, anyway? Except his hair looks damp, still, so it couldn't have been that long at all. "You found out Friday? Who was that on the phone?"

Jack's face darkens slightly. "My father. He doesn't understand why I can't do the surgery rotation at St. Sebastian's."

_Because he's an asshole who refuses to understand you want to get out from his shadow_, she thinks, but her brain still isn't quite back together from her dream, so she just reaches up, starts stroking his elbow. He'd said... four _months?_

"It's first thing next semester. That's... If you don't stay here this summer, if you go to Florida, I... We wouldn't be together for seven months."

That was the basically same amount of time as they'd been together. It wouldn't make any _sense_ to even stay together, at that rate. She rubs at her face, still trying to wake up. Why was the Jack in her dream older like that? Why was she performing surgery on him? Who was that other man, the light-haired one? Why would she electrocute _anyone?_ "Why... Why didn't you tell me this sooner?"

"I just found out on Friday," he repeats.

_And now it's Sunday,_ Juliet wants to say. She sits up on the couch, tucking her legs underneath. "New York?" she asks like she has no fucking clue where Columbia is.

His face is bleeding, high up on his cheek. He must have cut himself shaving. "You know I'll come see you whenever I can. And you'll come to me."

Does he have any idea how much a cross-country plane ticket costs? But she just nods lamely, trying to absorb this. He's telling her to change her plans to accommodate him, but it's not like she was looking forward to spending the summer with her utterly disinterested so-called family anyway... right? "I think I'm going to go back to my room for awhile."

"Juliet," he says incredulously, like he can't believe she's just leaving. But this apartment is too small, and his requests feel like orders and she just wants to be in a place where she only has to deal with herself.

She's packing up her stuff and he's right behind her. "Don't leave, Juliet. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I just didn't know what was going to happen, and I - "

"Jack. It's fine. I'm -"

"I'm sorry," he says, pleading. The cut on his face is still trickling.

"Thank you. Please let me finish. I have a lot of studying to do, and maybe it's good if we both cool off a little. I haven't been back to my room in a couple of days." Penny calls her if she gets any important messages, but still.

"Don't tell me you really want to go back to Florida and make four dollars an hour this summer," he says incredulously. A little condescendingly, but only maybe.

So sometimes she likes to turn off her brain, what's the big deal? He drinks, it's the same thing. At least she's making money while she does it. "I don't know what I want to do, Jack."_ I never know anything without you telling me,_ she thinks automatically, then almost recoils at the thought.

They stand there, facing each other, frozen like they're each holding a gun and trying to decide who's going to make a move first. But the phone rings again. Of course.

Jack breaks the gaze first, lifts the receiver. "Hello? ...Oh. Yeah, hang on." He cups his hand over the mouthpiece. "It's your sister."

"...What?" Things had been better between them, Rachel had started returning her calls, and they'd talked about shallow things, ignoring anything big, and mostly it was nothing (but at least it was something). But this is the first time Rachel had called on her own volition, at least in a long, long time. Juliet steps forward, reaches out, wraps her fingers around the plastic.

Jack walks to the kitchen area, pours himself a drink. Isn't it only three in the afternoon? Screw it, maybe she'd have one too, after this.

"Hi," she says into the phone, curious as hell. There's a hissing noise, and then something Juliet can't quite understand and then Rachel is crying into the phone. "What? What's the matter? Are you OK?"

Rachel just keeps crying. "Jules?" comes out through the tears.

"Rach, what is it?" She's so so afraid, all out of the blue. Her stomach twists.

"I have fucking leukemia!" her sister practically yells into the phone.

A buzzing sound threatens to drown out her hearing, and the edges of her vision go blurry. "No," she whispers, and all she can see is their mother in that chair in the chemo room, and she feels tears in the corners of her eyes and she can't breathe. Turning to the wall, away from Jack, she tries to focus on the cracks in the plaster, the dust around her bare toes. Her knees are weak.

"They want - they say - I mean, I have to, like, have treatment and everything. They just - fucking - blood tests, and..."

"Oh god," she whispers, so quietly even she herself can barely hear it, pressing a hand to her forehead. "Rachel, I'm so sorry. I... Was that why..." The bruises.

"Do you think... Do you think you could just, like, come out here, maybe? Just for the weekend or something, my friends are here but I don't know - I'm really fucking freaked out - I don't know - " Rachel starts sobbing again and it's all Juliet can do to not join her. Instead she bites down, _hard_, on the inside of her cheek, trying to distract herself with the pain except her heart is beating a million miles a minute.

"Yes," Juliet says. "Yeah. Yes, I can - let me just - I was on my way back to my room right now, I..."

"Can you just call me back then?" Rachel manages.

"OK. Twenty minutes. I love you." She can't remember the last time she told her sister that. Years ago, quite possibly. She swallows the lump in her throat. _Don't cry don't cry don't cry,_ Juliet tells herself.

"Me, too."

She hangs up and turns to Jack. His face is still fucking bleeding but he's ignoring it, just looking at her vaguely concerned. "What's your sister want?"

"It doesn't matter." She reaches down, pulls a tissue from the box on the coffee table, left over from last week when they'd shared a cold. She gestures toward his face, hands him the tissue. "I'm gonna go now. Don't bleed to death."


	11. Think About Something Else

**Dedicated to Brittany/propernice for leaving comment #100, the incredibly astute and wordy "MORE PLEASE." Oh, BB. 3**

* * *

_"You know I didn't really intend_  
_ to embrace you that long_  
_ but then again I wasn't the only one_  
_ holding on."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Good Bad, Ugly"

* * *

_I need a haircut. Maybe I'll cut my hair all off. Rachel is maybe going to have chemo and maybe she will shave her head first before her hair falls out like Mom did. (Mom Mom Mom.) No, this is bad bad bad bad, an unproductive line of thinking. I need to call the bus company __this is not happening __think about something else__. Greyhound. Really long trip eight hours. Need to count my money need to save up because what about a sublet and the MCAT prep course is going to be hundreds of dollars so maybe the summer temp job, oh but __this is not happening._

_Maybe I'll take off next Monday from classes this is not happening __think about something else__. That's six days away still except there's a calc quiz no no no no. But my average is so high right now I got a 99 on the last two and we have quizzes all the time so maybe I can miss just the one because it's an eight-hour drive there Rachel has fucking cancer __think about something else __ this is not happening and an eight-hour drive back and did I just run out on Jack what was going on there because he wants me doesn't he? And shouldn't that be more important because it is, it's so fucking important no one ever wants me and Jack does except am I just a baby-sitter to him or decoration in his apartment or what no that's not true he cares about me he wants me everyone always fucking leaves no no no,__ think about something else __but why didn't I just tell Jack that Rachel has cancer but someone even left me even before I was born everyone is going to leave just shut the fuck up shut up shut up think about something else. _

_Think think think fuck why is it always so hot out and also I wish I had hiking boots maybe I could get some hiking boots and bring them because Rachel likes hiking and we'll be in Arizona and she sent those pictures to Mom that time (Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom) where she and her friends were out hiking maybe we'll go to the canyon oh except Rachel probably doesn't feel well this is not happening someone please help us please anyone somewhere take this back because she could barely even fucking walk up four flights of stairs fuck fuck and that was six months ago so how long has she known about this or was she just putting off going to the doctor I should go to the doctor because how long ago was it that I last went and everyone has fucking cancer fuck fuck think about something anything else summer jobs grocery store the cellophane in the meat department and those little styrofoam trays, the mold that grows on the bottoms of strawberries I was working when Mom (no no no no) died and Rachel was there with her when, no no no no no no no no don't think about this carrots tomatoes bananas nineteen cents a pound fuck fuck fuck this is not happening this can't be happening._

The city bus wheezes up to the edge of campus and then her feet are moving almost independently of her body, she's skittering the two blocks toward her dorm in her stupid flimsy sandals and why does she never seem to be wearing sensible fucking footwear?

Except Juliet slows when she gets to her building. Because Jack is sitting on the steps, his elbows on his knees and a pair of car keys dangling from his fingers. "It's faster to drive," he says.

She swallows a panting breath. "What are you doing here?"

"I couldn't let you leave without telling you."

"Without telling me what?"

He stands, steps toward her. "I love you, Juliet."

She just stares at him, her heart thumping, all she needs is to get away from this all, her body is too hot and why can't he understand she has more urgent things to worry about other than his bid to keep her here this summer. Except she's frozen in place and he misunderstands her stillness, he's reaching out for her now, his eyes searching hers and oh she's supposed to say it back except - "I - Jack, I - I can't - I have to - " and hurt is flashing in his eyes and she yanks herself out of his grasp and stumbles into her building.

She runs up all four flights of stairs when the elevator doesn't arrive quickly enough and dials Rachel's number, practically panting into the phone.

"Hello?"

"Rachel," Juliet gasps.

"Jesus, you didn't just, like, _run_ to your dorm, did you? Because I'm not gonna die in the next hour, I swear."

Juliet presses her hand to her forehead. "OK. Would it be all right if I came sooner? Like tomorrow?"

"Don't you have class?"

Why can't she stop shaking? "It doesn't matter. Tell me what happened."

Rachel hadn't been feeling well for months, kept putting off seeing a doctor. "Those bruises, they kept coming back. I couldn't figure out why. Niall thought I was sleepwalking and knocking into shit." Finally she'd gone in. They'd done exams, blood tests. "They took, like, two gallons of blood. Guess I have to get used to needles anyway."

Juliet hasn't even opened her eyes in probably five minutes. "Do you know when your first treatment is? What are they doing, chemo?"

"Yeah. Should be fucking delightful. I'm stuffing my face right now while I still can; you know what it was like when - well. It's like the end of May. The 30th or 31st, I think. Somewhere in the middle of the week. They prefer to save Friday chemo for the gainfully employed." There's a pause. "You really want to come out here? I mean, I know I asked you to, but you don't mind? It's like a whole day on the bus."

"I don't mind." Juliet glances around the dorm room she hasn't seen since Friday, anyway. "I could use a change of scenery."

She spends the rest of the afternoon packing and trying not to think about Rachel. Or Jack. What must he think of her? He must think she had some sort of nervous breakdown. Or maybe she_ is_ having one. Or is going to. Another excuse to get out of paying back her loans, right?

Jack calls her, leaves a message about how he doesn't understand.

"I need some time. I need to see my sister." She feels like she should be crying, or something, but. But what? She doesn't even feel anything. Maybe she could get Rachel's chemo for her. Maybe she wouldn't even feel a thing.

"What's going on?" he finally demands. "If this is about this summer, forget I asked. It's not worth - "

"It's not, Jack. I... Let me talk to you in a few days. I'm going to my sister's."

"What? What about your cl - "

"I'll call you soon. I promise."

After convincing Penny to drop off notes for her professors on Monday morning, Juliet sets her alarm for six a.m.

Four hours into the bus ride, she closes her eyes and presses her forehead to the cool, rattling pane of the window. _This is as far from both LA and Flagstaff as I am going to get today._ She wishes she could just disappear somewhere in the desert, but the bus wheels just keep on rolling.


	12. The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock

_"Sometimes the beauty is easy. Sometimes you don't have to try at all.  
Sometimes you can hear the wind blow in a handshake.  
Sometimes there's poetry written right on the bathroom wall."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Good Bad, Ugly"

* * *

Juliet's just about wondering if she should find a payphone when a faded red Ford pickup pulls up to the curb and Rachel waves from the passenger seat, opens the door. "You made it," Rachel says unnecessarily, and slides toward the middle of the seat.

_If you're implying I didn't die in a fiery bus wreck on I-40, that would be correct. _"Hey." Juliet hesitates a second, then heaves her duffel over the edge and into the bed of the truck.

Once she's squeezed in next to Rachel, the driver leans over, shakes her hand. "Nice to meet you. I'm Niall. Housemate." He has curly brown hair, an easy grin, an Irish accent.

"Niall does janitorial at the observatory," Rachel reports. Her eyes are tired, fatigue-ringed. "You know they discovered Pluto here?"

Juliet shakes her head.

"Trust me, I don't get to see anything cool," he says. "And astronomers are slobs. But then, so's your sister."

Rachel laughs. Juliet can't remember the last time she'd heard her sister laugh. It's nice, is all.

The truck veers away from the downtown area Juliet remembers from the time she and their mother brought Rachel to college. "Where do you live?" Juliet asks, genuinely curious, as the truck heads into the woods.

"In Mountainaire now, it's this sorta this little suburb, south of Flag."

"No, it's a village," Niall offers.

"A hamlet," Rachel responds, and Juliet gets the feeling that they do this all the time, and also that maybe they're a little more than just housemates.

"An enclave," Niall tries.

"Juliet?" Rachel prompts.

Juliet thinks a moment. "A census-designated place?"

Rachel throws both hands into the air. "And _that's _why you're gonna be a fucking doctor and I'm a bartender and he's a janitor."

"Oh come on, 'enclave' was decent," Niall says.

* * *

They live along a sloping, winding hill in a dark brown wooden A-frame. The front room and kitchen area are two stories tall, with two bedrooms downstairs and two up. The upstairs hallway looks down into the front room, and it's a nice concept, even if the whole thing looks like it's going to collapse in on itself at any moment _(but then what fucking isn't?) _and there's a thin layer of grime over everything.

The stovetop looks like it would need to be sandblasted if they had any hope of actually getting it clean, and there's a dark blue bong on the coffee table. Soft black stains on the rug nearby. Bong water spill, she thinks, not that she knows a whole hell of a lot about that sort of thing.

Juliet meets the other housemates, Allie and Duncan, and two friends, Akihiko and Scott (or Steve? She almost instantly forgets. Figures that she can remember Akihiko). Akihiko's shucking corn, tossing the husks into a cardboard box instead of a garbage can like someone would do in any normal household, and Allie's straining a pot of tiny brown shell-looking things into a colander in the sink.

"Lentils," Allie says when she notices Juliet looking. "Lots of protein. We're on a freakin' health kick for your sister."

"Hey, Julie?" Duncan asks.

"Juliet."

"Juliet, sorry. Rachel always refers to you as Julie. Would you get the blueberries out of the fridge? We're gonna do a pie for later."

"Blueberries have antioxidants and shit," Allie puts in.

"What should I do?" Rachel asks.

"Sit down and shut up," Niall commands.

Rachel rolls her eyes and hoists herself up to sit on the counter, watching the proceedings and looking vaguely amused.

Scott or Steve hits a button on the tape deck and a soft song starts playing, something Juliet vaguely remembers their father listening to a lot when she and Rachel were little.

"I feel like I have about half a dozen mothers right now," Rachel says suddenly. But the way she says it, it's not like she's complaining. It's like she's happy, and wanted, and surrounded by people, these people taking care of her, making this communal meal, laughing and joking, and Juliet's not sure what she was expecting, but this is not it at all.

And she's suddenly intensely jealous.

* * *

"You OK? You need anything?"

Juliet's just finished arranging her sheets on the pull-out couch in the living room. She shakes her head, digging her bare toes into their shag carpeting. Feels crumbs, or something. _Gross._ She stops moving.

"I..." Rachel hesitates.

"Your friends are nice," Juliet offers. _I don't know why you need me here._

Her sister nods, and Juliet wonders if she can read her mind, but all she says is, "Thanks."

* * *

Juliet feels like shit on Tuesday, having forgotten about the altitude sickness. She and Rachel watch stupid movies all day long and don't talk about anything significant.

Niall and Allie take her out to an old native reservation on Wednesday, out past Flagstaff's rolling hills, out where it's totally flat, and for some reason the crossroads seem to stretch out forever and it makes her heart hurt. They see a storm coming from miles away, race it in Allie's VW Rabbit. The storm catches up with them, anyway.

On Thursday, she calls Jack, gets his answering machine, leaves a message. She'd almost forgotten about him, about her classes, about her real life in LA. Instead, she helps Duncan stack firewood. Akihiko comes over with pot. Juliet asks them about their health kick. "Weed is totally natural," Rachel assures her. (Juliet hates lentils, anyway. They all get incredibly fucking baked.)

Friday morning she talks Niall into driving her up to Flagstaff. He leaves her at the library for an hour while he runs errands. It's long enough for her to steal some medical texts, shoving them into her backpack. Juliet's never stolen anything in her life, but she doesn't have a Flagstaff library card, and anyway, she'll sneak the books back into the library again before she goes. She spends the afternoon with Rachel. After Rachel's asleep that night, Juliet stays up late reading about acute myeloid leukemia.

Saturday night, the housemates host a "Fuck Cancer" party, charging $5 at the door, a fee that's supposed to help with Rachel's expenses. The house is fucking packed. The stereo is blaring the whole time, ZZ Top and Aerosmith, Guns 'N' Roses and David Bowie. Juliet drinks too much, too fast. Rachel's surrounded by people. Juliet's still not sure what she's doing here, is afraid by how comfortable it is here, really. (Jack hasn't called her back.)

Juliet can still hear the music outside, but it's a tenth of the volume and she can hear crickets, too. Looking up at the stars, she wishes she knew the names of the constellations. Maybe she'll take an astronomy course one semester. Not next semester, that's all set up and lined out already like pretty much the rest of her goddamn life.

She's not sure how long she watches the sky until the door slides open, and it's her sister.

"Hey," Rachel says.

"Hi."

"You OK?"

Juliet nods, still looking up at the sky. It's so dark here, she can see every star. Not like LA or Miami.

Rachel plops down next to her, doesn't say anything for a long time. "How do you think Mom did it?"

Juliet's heart trembles. "I don't know."

"I'm sorry I didn't come home more. I was just... really really scared."

"Well, so was_ I."_ Juliet's voice is more bitter than she would have expected, but also it feels just about right. She was only in tenth grade when it had started. Rachel had just left for college.

Rachel nods, shivering, and unties the long-sleeved shirt from around her waist, slips it on. They hear a male voice booming from inside. "Niall is in his drunken poetry recitation mode. He always gets this way when he drinks hard liquor. Dude needs to fucking stick to beer or he turns into a goddamn beatnik wimp."

"That sounds... nice."

"Ridiculous and pretentious, is what it is." Rachel smirks a little, anyway. "I'm really glad you came out here, you know?"

"Yeah?"

"You know, you can be a huge dumbass." Rachel rolls her eyes, and OK, there's that same Rachel she's known. "How many fucking sisters do you think I have?"

Juliet bites the inside of her cheek, thinking about yesterday's reading. "Are you going to need a bone marrow transplant?"

Rachel inhales a little too sharply. She shifts a little, next to her. "I don't know yet."

"If you need one, you know I'll get tested. To see if we match."

Rachel squeezes her eyes shut, screws up her face like she's trying not to cry. "You don't have to - "

"Are you kidding me?"

"I don't know."

"Rachel, _obviously_ I'm going to get tested. You know, you can be a huge dumbass too." It's funny, a second ago Juliet felt like she was on the verge of crying, and now she could almost smile. "You want to go in?"

"Losing your buzz already?" Rachel's voice is shaky, and they have obviously decided they've gone deep enough for one night.

Inside, the room is filled with smoke and there's that same soft music playing on the tape deck again, the music Scott or Steve was playing her first night here. She can't quite place it. Something from the '70s, though.

Niall is standing on the coffee table, a beer in one hand, a battered paperback in the other.

_"For I have known them all already, known them all... _  
_Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, _  
_I have measured out my life with coffee spoons..."_

Juliet smiles to herself. T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. She says the next part in her head, swaying a little.

_"I know the voices dying with a dying fall _  
_Beneath the music from a farther room. _  
_So how should I presume?"_

Except she's drunk, and Niall sees her lips moving faintly, points the rolled-up book at her. "Looks like we have a winner!" he crows, gesturing at her.

It dawns at her what he's implying, that he wants her to get up there with him, and she's instantly horrified, backing away. The people nearest them howl in disagreement, urging her toward him. Juliet just runs to the back corner, to the kitchen area, shaking her head furiously all the way. Instead she makes herself another drink, wonders why that _"a dying fall"_ part echoes in her head the way it does, and maybe she shouldn't be having this next drink, but she doesn't really care.

Niall keeps reciting without her.

_"And would it have been worth it, after all, _  
_After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, _  
_Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, _  
_Would it have been worth while, _  
_To have bitten off the matter with a smile, _  
_To have squeezed the universe into a ball _  
_To roll it toward some overwhelming question, _  
_To say: 'I am Lazarus, come from the dead, _  
_Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all' -_  
_If one, settling a pillow by her head, _  
_Should say: 'That is not what I meant at all. _  
_That is not it, at all.'"_

She smiles faintly to herself through to the end, _'Til human voices wake us and we drown, _and later Niall finds her sprawled out sideways in an armchair. "Coulda used you up there."

"You were doing just fine." Her voice is far-away, dreamy.

"Can you believe Eliot wrote that when he was twenty-one? Twenty-fucking-one years old." Niall shakes his head, wedges his ass onto the armrest.

"I think he was twenty-two." She closes her eyes for a long moment.

"Huh. OK. So, sorry we're having this little shindig in your bedroom."

"Guess it's my fault for having a bedroom in the living room." God, she misses this easy back-and-forth with Jack. Things had been so tight with them, so tense. And it's never been all that easy, anyway. _This_ easy. "Are you in love with my sister?" Her words are all bumping into each other. There's a long pause, exceptionally long, and Juliet cringes, realizes her verbal filter is broken due to the alcohol. She opens her eyes. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

"It's OK, it's just... I love your sister, yes, very much, but she..." Niall grimaces, shakes his head.

"I'm... really sorry. I shouldn't have..."

"Don't worry about it. You didn't know. It's just... Twenty-two goddamn years old he was, can you imagine? I'm twenty-two already and I'm a bloody janitor. We're all over that here, I think. Except... How old are you?"

She flushes slightly. "Nineteen."

"Well, there you have it. Maybe you'll be the one of us to do something big before you're twenty-one."

Somehow she doubts that very much. "Maybe." She says it only to be polite. Except... he'd called her one of them, just now. Like she belongs.

_"And indeed there will be time To wonder, 'Do I dare?' and, 'Do I dare?' Time to turn back and descend the stair," _he says.

Suddenly Rachel's face is hovering over hers. "Jack's on the phone," she slurs, worse than either of the two of them, and Juliet heaves herself out of the armchair. Of course, as soon as she stands, the floor seems to rock underneath her and she barely stumbles to the phone in the corner.

"Jack?"

"Hey." His voice seems tinny and far away and relieved.

_"I have seen them riding seaward on the waves," _she says into the receiver.

"Is that some sort of riddle?"

She feels something roll through her chest, not knowing what she wants, what she wants at all, wanting to be in two places all at once suddenly, and yet not really wanting to be in either, also. Juliet clears her throat. "My sister has leukemia."

"What? Juliet," he gasps. It actually seems a little overdramatic, and Juliet grips the wall. The entire room is spinning. "I"m so sorry. What hap... When did she - "

"She called me at your place? On Sunday?'

"Yeah," he croaks. "Why didn't you just tell me?"

"I don't know, Jack. I don't know. I'm sorry. _I've measured out my life in coffee spoons."_

"...Are you drunk?"

_"Yes,"_ she says impatiently.

"No more for you tonight," he declares. "When are you coming back? Do you want me to come there?"

_And I have known the eyes already, known them all - the eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase..._ "No... No... I'm leaving tomorrow."

"Can I pick you up? At the bus?"

"OK. Yeah. I'm sorry."

"It's OK. We're going to get through this." He sounds so determined._ He doesn't even know Prufrock._

"My bus gets in at 8:15. At night."

"I'll see you there. Juliet, I love you."

She grips the wall more tightly. "I love you too, Jack."

_That is not what I meant at all. _  
_That is not it, at all._

* * *

**Please leave a review! You don't need to have a FF net account and I enjoy reading your thoughts so much!**_  
_


	13. Any Normal Person in Any Normal World

**Thank you so much to propernice over at livejournal for beta'ing this! ILU, BB!**

* * *

_There's never been an endeavor so strange_  
_as trying to slow the blood in my veins_  
_to keep my face blank_  
_as a stone that just sank_  
_until not a ripple remains._

- Ani DiFranco, "Studying Stones"

* * *

Jack's uncharacteristically quiet on the drive from the bus station to his apartment, and it's starting to worry her a little. Juliet would have expected him to be peppering her with information about leukemia, expanding on what she'd read in the books, not all of which she understands because she's at least a few years away from that.

It's when he parks outside the building that her fears go from vague to stomach-churning, when he puts his head down on the steering wheel and starts to cry.

"Jack?" She leans over, puts one hand on his shoulder, reaches the other across his body, cupping his elbow. "Jack - Jack, look at me, what is it?"

"Juliet - I'm so sorry - I wasn't planning to tell you, I thought it would just be better, but - " He swallows hard, a shuddering sob rolling through his body.

Juliet's shaking her head. "Weren't planning to tell me what?"

"Thursday night, I - well, when you - " Jack is practically panting and she wonders if he's going to hyperventilate on her or something. "I went out with some people, and you hadn't called, and you - "

Something is slowly dawning on her. "Jack."

"I slept with someone. Juliet, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. You just, I thought, I thought it was over and I was drunk and - "

She unbuckles the seatbelt and opens the door. Picks up her handbag. "Are you coming upstairs?"

Confusion, all over his face. "Juliet, I - please - I'm sorry, just say something."

_One. Hydrogen. H, _she tells herself._ Atomic weight 1.0079. Two. Helium. He. Atomic Weight 4.0026._

Juliet shuts the car door, doesn't even slam it, leaves the duffel bag in the trunk. Starts walking toward his building. Her peripheral vision has gone blank and she's taking deep breaths so she won't cry or vomit or do anything other than just walk and keep her heart beating.

In the elevator, Jack wipes his face and keeps stealing little glances over at her. "It's over, isn't it?"

_Three. Lithium. Li. Atomic weight 6.9something. 6.941._

She wills herself to speak. "What's over?"

He looks at her like she's stupid, swings his arm in a gesture to their surroundings even though they're in a little metal box. "This, us, playing house."

The door mercifully dings at his floor. She gets out first; he trails after her like a lost puppy. _A lost puppy that fucked someone else no no shut up. _She fishes her key from her handbag (because, yes, she even has a key to his goddamn apartment). Jack's tugging at her elbow as she unlocks the door and she spins around. "What, Jack. What."

Jack's face is flushed, his eyes jumpy. "I'm so sorry, Juliet, I just, I thought it was over, she didn't mean anything, I was so drunk, I'll never even see her again, just, please, could you just - just yell at me or hit me or something, _please_, I just - I told you I loved you and you ran off, and I -"

Is he even _remotely_ trying to put this on her? Juliet pushes past him, into the apartment, and it's hard to breathe and her lungs hurt and her whole face aches from not crying.

_Fifteen. Phosphorus. P. Atomic weight 30.9738. Sixteen. Sulfur. S. Atomic weight 32.065. _

The garbage bags are in a box over the stove, and she peels one off the roll, snaps it open. Empties out her drawer in Jack's dresser, goes into the bathroom and sweeps her toiletries off the shelf. She digs into her handbag, tosses her birth control pills into his garbage. Good, _let _him have to see them after she's gone.

Emerging from the bathroom, she pauses when she sees Jack just standing there in the middle of the room, clenching and unclenching his hands like he doesn't even know what else to do. She doesn't think she'd hear him anymore even if he started speaking again; her ears are buzzing like she's standing next to a power generator.

_Twenty-three. Vanadium. V. Atomic weight 50.9...4...15? _

"Please take me home now."

"Jul-"

"Or would you like me to call a cab?" She tightens her jaw. He can't see her crying. He just _can't._

Jack pulls his car keys from his pocket, slowly, like it's taking him a lot of effort. "If there's anything I can do... could you just yell, or - I _love_ you, Juliet, I was _drunk_, I'm sorry, I love you so much."

Why was there always all this 'we're going to get through this' bullshit with him, like life is just always something to be gotten through?

She's supposed to love him, and she's always been good at following orders. But she can't do it, she can't yell, she's the one who brushed him off when he'd told her he loved her, she's the one who spent days without calling him when he didn't have the number. "I just want to go home." _You don't have a home Jack was your home and you took him for granted shut up stop this he's the one who, just no no no._

* * *

Jack shakes almost uncontrollably on the drive to her dorm, and at each intersection Juliet focuses on the stoplights' red and green reflections on the rainy asphalt. Every intersection they go through means they're getting closer to saying goodbye. He didn't want her anymore, no matter what he said. Or thought. That's all.

Outside her dorm, the brakes groan under them like he's pressing them too slowly.

Turning to face him, Juliet doesn't meet his eyes. "What we had, it was just for a little while."

The lobby is empty. She walks up the stairs. No more elevators tonight.

Penny's not home. Juliet goes to the communal bathroom, turns on the shower. Makes the water as hot as she can stand. How was it that less than an hour ago, she was still approaching LA on a Greyhound bus? How come she felt like she was unhappy _before_, and now it's even worse? What did she have, that she didn't even know? Nothing makes any fucking sense.

_We never even went to a Dodgers game._

She lets herself cry until she hears someone else come into the bathroom, and then she washes her hair like a normal human being in a normal communal bathroom in a normal dorm in a normal world, and everything is fine and normal and nothing is horrible and fucked-up anywhere ever.

* * *

She sleeps. She studies. She drinks. She calls Gemma.

She studies. She eats. She doesn't eat. She sleeps. She looks for a summer sublet.

She calls Rachel, just to chat. Rachel chats. They don't talk about anything important, and Juliet brushes off her sister's "How's Jack?" with a "Fine."

She prepares for finals. She quits drinking when it starts interfering with preparing for finals. _See, it's not that difficult, Jack._ She sleeps. She can't find a summer sublet she can afford.

She studies. She studies. She studies. She never cries. About anything.

It sucks.

* * *

Rachel calls on May 1. "Got a strange little proposition for you."

"OK?"

"Allie's moving in with her boyfriend. So we have an extra room. And Dad said he'd pay your rent if you stayed here for the summer."

"He did? He said he wouldn't pay for me to stay in LA."

"That's 'cause you'd just spend the entire summer screwing Jack."

Juliet feels like she's been kicked in the stomach. "Rachel..."

"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I mean, it's not like we couldn't find anyone else now, but if you wanted, you could take the room and then we'll get someone else in the fall. You can spend three months watching me puke my guts out, so you know it'll be a good time."

Juliet twists the phone cord around her fingers. "You really think this would be a good idea?"

"Honestly? I don't know. It's entirely possible that one of us will end up strangling the other."

"But...?" Juliet prompts.

"But? _I _don't know. You're my sister. It might be sort of strangely nice having you around during a hellish summer. And I don't know, you seemed to have a pretty good time here, didn't you?"

Juliet bites her lip. The truth is, she really had. It had been oddly freeing. Everyone was so... _real._ "I guess so."

"Look, you don't have to decide right now. But I know you were saying you couldn't find anything good out there. And I highly doubt you want to spend the summer living with our new mommy and getting checked out by Creepy Brett. Unless you're shacking up with Jack after all."

Juliet sucks in her breath to keep from crying. "Jack and I broke up."

There's a long pause. Then: "Shit. I'm sorry, Julie."

"Yeah. Well. Thanks. I have to go."

They hang up and she looks around her room. What is she doing, exactly? She wishes she could call Jack. _No, you don't. You just don't._

Why does this have to hurt so much?_  
_

* * *

On her last night in the dorms, Juliet is lying sprawled across her bed. Penny and her friend Tara are going through Penny's stuff, trying to figure out what Tara can take so Penny doesn't have to lug it off to England for a summer at her mother's. Even Penny's cast-offs are enviable thanks to her father's AmEx, and Juliet's already benefited, courtesy of her having the same enormously embarrassing shoe size as Pen.

But of course she starts thinking about her last night in the dorms last year, trying to ignore Sarah and dumb Kevin making out across the room until Jack called. Juliet squeezes her eyes tight, trying to think about her new (second-hand) shoes with the gold trim, remembers her Jack (ugh ugh ugh) and Coke on the floor next to her bed, leans down and takes a sip. The alcohol is affecting her like crazy tonight because she hasn't had a drink in almost a month; she's already on her fourth one, and it's not that she was exactly perfectly happy with Jack, but she also didn't want... _that_... to happen, and just...

Maybe she should just call him. Would that be the most stupid idea ever, because she's just drunk and lonely and sad?

Before she knows what she's doing, she's sliding off her bed, and it's like her feet are carrying her to the phone on their own volition. Her fingers are shaky and she dials his number as she stumbles toward their closet, ignoring Penny and Tara's curious glances.

He's probably not going to be home, she thinks, and then she's afraid of what it means if he's out, but he picks up on the second ring, says hello in kind of an exhausted tone.

She squeezes her eyes shut, enveloped by fear or regret or just something she doesn't know.

"Hello?" Jack repeats, a little more impatiently.

"Hi," she squeaks out. "It's... it's me." Oh sure, that's stupid. _It's me_ like she's egotistical enough to not need a name, but then again it's not like he wouldn't recognize her voice.

"Juliet." His voice sounds rich and relieved and she tightens her closed eyelids, screwing up her face.

"How... how are you?"

"I'm..." Jack sighs. "I miss you."

Her sinuses flood and she holds her breath for a minute. "Oh," she says in the smallest voice imaginable.

"How have you been? Finals?"

"OK. Done now."

"Congratulations."

"Yeah. Well. Yours?"

"Finished Monday."

"That's good," she manages. "And the USMLE?"

"It went well. I think. I, uh... What are you doing this summer?"

"Going to Arizona."

"Really." He sounds surprised. Well, of course. He _should_ be surprised.

"Yeah, I... I don't know how it's going to be. I guess I'm just going to help my sister."

"That's... I'm sure she'll appreciate it. When are you leaving?"

"Um. Tomorrow."

"Do you... I mean, if you want, would you... like to get a drink or something? Tonight?"

Her chest fills with stupid hope, but what is she doing, she's leaving tomorrow and will this just be a repeat of last summer's longing and loneliness? All she knows is that she wants one more night of playing pretend. "Yeah."

* * *

Jack hasn't shaved in a few days, and his eyes look sad and bright and she self-consciously brushes her hair away from her face when she sees him standing at the corner, can't quite contain the flip her stomach does.

They find a little table at a dingy bar just off campus that doesn't check IDs, make small talk until last call. About an hour, really, since it's not like they'd gotten started all that early in the evening. He excuses himself to go to the bathroom and she blots tears from the corners of her eyes, but also at this point she's had enough to drink that she's starting to actually feel better. Sure, alcohol is a depressant. Suuuuure it is.

Jack comes back, pays the bartender, nods over at her. "You, uh... you want to get out of here?"

_The story of my life. _"Yeah."

She's not sure how they end up at his place except maybe he wants to drink and not drive, and he pours her a gin and tonic which she finds absolutely wretched, so he makes her a Jack and Coke and himself one, drinks both of their G&Ts and what do they even think they're doing here.

He flips on the stereo when they're on their next round, and slowly the room fills with strains of that soft, intense song she remembers from Rachel's house, that one from maybe the '70s, what she thinks she maybe remembers her father playing when they were little. "What is this?" She's never heard Jack play it before.

"Brian Eno, The Big Ship?"

"My... I think my father used to play this a lot."

"Yeah?"

She nods, closes her eyes to let the music wash over her, keyboard and electric guitars and the whole thing swelling together with the alcohol is so beautiful that her eyes are still closed when she feels Jack's lips on hers. Instinctively she opens her mouth for him and she feels his hand snake under her hair, threading through it, and she almost sobs into his mouth but then she's pressed up against him, kissing him and whatever part of him had caused him to do what he did or does or was or is. He's leaning forward, slightly over her, and she pulls him down onto the couch, kissing and kissing him, reaching for the hem of his T-shirt and pulling it over his head.

Everything is such a mess and keeps being a mess but right now there is only this and she could thank him or punch him or scream at him or keep kissing him right here forever or at least until she leaves in the morning, but she pushes him up off her after a minute and he's looking at her, confused.

Juliet reaches out, takes both his hands in hers, leads him over to the bed.

* * *

Sometime in the middle of the night she half-wakes up, thinking maybe they didn't use a condom. But then again, things have been too much, too hard lately. Nothing else can possibly go wrong. She shuts her eyes and curls against him.


	14. What Sky I'm Under

_"I wake up in the night_  
_and I don't know where the bathroom is_  
_and I don't know what town I'm in_  
_or what sky I'm under._

_And I wake up in the darkness and I_  
_don't have the will anymore to wonder."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Dilate"

* * *

**Summer 1990, Arizona**

"Hey! _Julie! _You know when I said that order was up, I meant it's up_ today?"_

Juliet crams the last handful of napkins into the dispenser at the end of the counter, spins around to the back counter. _Gee, thanks, I really thought you meant it would be ready next fucking month, Andy. _"Sorry." She plucks a tray from the stack, gives it a quick wipedown with a rag of dubious-at-best cleanliness, starts loading up the plates.

Andy ducks back into the kitchen, and Juliet looks up to see the other waitress watching her. "You know, you shouldn't let him boss you around like that," Lisa says.

"Sorry," Juliet responds automatically, shuffles away to table 16. Her feet hurt and her tips today suck and she's not sure why she's stuck here in a glorified chrome box, instead of a nice, air-conditioned grocery store. Except she'd let Rachel convince her that this'll pay off once the place puts her on the dinner shift. Full bar and all.

She eases the tray onto the table, starts distributing food. "Hey, my son wanted the hashbrowns?" prompts the harried-looking mother. Teased hair. Not from around here.

Juliet does a double-take and sighs internally. "Oh, we do them like that here, in the patties."

"You don't do them just shredded." The woman looks at her with disdain, but Juliet's been here two weeks, long enough to lose the anxiety and transition into having the simple, constant and seemingly never-ending desire to strangle each and every customer.

"I can put in a special order for them." _Just cut the fucking thing up, it'll taste exactly the same. Promise._

The woman looks aggravated; the little boy starts up a high-pitched whine about being hungry NOOWWW and not wanting his potatoes all in one piece.

"How long is that gonna take?"

"As fast as he can. The grill's hot - not longer than ten." God, she's tired today.

"Ten minutes?"

_Would you like me to change the laws of thermodynamics for you, ma'am? _"They'll be up as quickly as we can." (Jack liked them shredded, too. She wonders if it's some kind of fuel for assholes.)

The order's barely in before Mac starts in on her. "You ever gonna put the rest of the napkins dispensers out?"

She tries to swallow her yawn. _I would, except I have this little problem known as customers. They just keep demanding things, like food. And forks. And knives. Speaking of knives, Mac... _"Getting back to them right now."

"Hey Mac, who's on lunch with me?" Lisa interrupts.

"Julie's not doing lunch?"

"Her sister's got the, you know, the thing today."

"That _today? _Julie, you sure you cleared that with me for today?"

Juliet keeps her head down, just keeps filling up the dispensers in a jumbled row of stainless steel rectangles and ignoring how her hands are starting to shake. "Karen's with Lisa for lunch," she squeezes out. "Every other Wednesday, starting today."

"K. Just make sure it's on the schedule in the back."

"It is."

"Fine. Just, uh, tell your sis I said good luck and all." Mac nods, eases down off the stool and makes his way to the register.

"Dickhead," Lisa mutters to his retreating form.

* * *

Juliet rolls down all four of Rachel's car windows, which is no simple feat since they're all manual. She's gotta get from downtown Flag to Mountainaire, pick up Rachel, get back to Flagstaff Medical Center, and sit there for three or so hours while people slowly poison her sister.

Really, the lack of air conditioning should be the least of her problems.

And once the radio's on and her hair is blowing all around her head, things are actually vaguely pleasant for a few minutes. She's not in LA, she's not in Miami, she's just here, driving through the woods, and sure, she smells like greasy food and her left shoe is sticking to the floor of the car because she stepped in syrup, but still.

Niall is chopping firewood outside the house when she pulls up, the tires crunching hard over gravel. He nods at her, gives her a little salute. She's not sure why her stomach flutters a bit at that (wasn't Jack enough? Doesn't she need some kind of break?), but once she's out of the car, he cracks a grin, points to her waist.

She realizes she's still wearing her apron. With straws sticking out the big pocket on her hip. Great, because dirty aprons with straws sticking out of a pocket are really very classy.

"Need a straw?" she asks.

He laughs. "Maybe later."

They nod at each other, both standing there. "So, ah," he finally begins. "You, you want me to come?"

"That's really up to her."

"She said she didn't care."

"I think that's Rachel-speak for 'yes'."

"That's kinda what I thought, too."

Rachel grimaces when they walk in together. She's got a little bag packed and sitting next to her on the couch. Juliet had told her what to bring: sweatshirt, blankets, a book which Juliet knows from experience probably will end up splayed open on Rachel's chest once they get started. "So, ready for the big show?" Rachel asks.

Even standing there next to the two of them, Juliet suddenly feels very very alone.

* * *

Once the Benadryl kicks in, Rachel pretty much passes out, and she sleeps while her IVs run. Juliet sort of wishes Niall hadn't come because, because why? She's not sure. But he doesn't make needless conversation, and she appreciates that, even if it means she's thinking about her mother's first chemo.

Jack always liked to fill silences. That was good sometimes, too. Sometimes, not. She doesn't know. She supposes it doesn't matter, anyway. The really awkward moment came that last morning in LA, when he's apparently assumed they were back together. Except it was one night. It didn't mean anything. They're in different cities for the next seven months now. It was never going to work out, anyway. They're too different. She didn't know how to ever let him in. And he screwed someone else.

Niall drives the car back to Mountainaire; Juliet sits in the backseat with Rachel, who's lying heavily against her. The first day, it's just exhaustion, but Juliet knows Rachel's mind is probably racing even though her body isn't.

That's how it was with their mother, anyway.

But this won't be_ all_ like it was with their mother, right? There's some way out of this... right? Even if there's no magical person up in the perfect blue sky ready to take it all back.

Niall doesn't play the radio. Juliet keeps her eyes closed. Rachel's hair is tickling the crook of her elbow.

* * *

When Juliet finally drops into bed that night, she wonders again when she's going to get used to sleeping alone. She's exhausted enough that sleep should come easily, but instead she's just listening to Duncan's car whirring in the driveway. Crickets and tree frogs. The thumping din of a loud party two blocks away, made audible by the silence of the night. Tthe swish of the trees along the back fence; Niall's feet overhead, pacing or tapping on the second floor.

And then the flop of rubber sandals outside her bedroom door. What Juliet didn't expect was the footsteps to approach her room instead of the bathroom. The hesitance. And then Rachel's whispering voice outside the door.

"You awake?"

"Rachel? Come in. Are you all right?"

Juliet's already half out of bed when Rachel opens the door and pauses, her body sagging against the door frame. "Hey. You... don't need to get up." Her face is bathed in a halo of light from the moon. Her arms cross over her chest. "Were you sleeping?"

"Mm-mm." Juliet eases back down.

Rachel nods, walks the rest of the way in without saying anything. Without thinking, Juliet moves over, against the wall. It was an almost unconscious gesture, back from when they were little and would sneak into each other's rooms at night. Until, sometime in the summer of 1977, Rachel decided she hated her.

But now Rachel climbs onto the bed. Delicately, as if she's climbing onto an inflatable raft that could rupture at any moment. They curl instinctively toward each other, not touching. For awhile they're silent.

"Do you ever think about our real father?"

Juliet stops breathing for a moment. "No." _I love lying. _She's been wondering lately. If Rachel needs the bone marrow transplant, if she's not a match... who else is there?

"Me either. Not... anymore. I thought maybe. Maybe you did. When we were little, I used to think... Like, that once we were on our own, you know. He'd find us, or something."

"That's... I never thought that."

"Yeah. Well, you never met him."

"Do you remember him?"

"I remember Mom crying. I don't know. I guess, I think so. This one time, I tripped, right at the top of the stairs. And Mom screamed really loud because she saw it happening, and the door flew open. It just flew wide open, and Dad was standing there. He was coming up to the house and he heard her scream, and he just, you know, just burst in. And I was totally fine. But what I remember being scared about wasn't falling, it was him coming in."

Juliet twists her mouth into a half-smile, half-frown, sucking on her lower lip. "Rachel? Why did you used to always say you hated me?"

There's a long pause, long enough for Juliet to re-catalog her nocturnal soundtrack (more crickets, party getting a little louder, the gurgle of the pipes, Duncan on the phone in the front room). Long enough for her to think,_ This is it, you've ruined everything._

"I don't know. I mean, we were kids, you know? I just... This is going to sound really stupid, or fucked-up, or, I don't know. I was having these dreams where you would just disappear, or someone took you away, or I would find out you'd died."

Juliet digs her fingers into the sheets, trying to ground herself. "I'd... _died?"_

"Yeah. I'd have these dreams where I was, you know, like an adult already. And this guy, some guy with a Southern accent? He showed up at my house and said you were dead."

That... doesn't even make any fucking sense. Not even remotely. "Why would that make you hate me?"

In the moonlight she can see Rachel's eyes starting to close. Juliet wants to yell,_ no, you don't do to sleep_, because the next two or three days are going to be far worse than today.

"Because... because, I don't know," Rachel says. "Like, I'd needed you, or something, and I told you to go... like, _somewhere,_ and you listened and you went, I don't know. And I guess it, like, hurt really bad that you'd left. And then that you'd gotten killed. So I was pissed? I don't know. I was just a kid."

"So... you decided you hated me because I abandoned you in a _dream?"_

"Jules..." Rachel yawns. "We were just kids. I don't know. It was stupid. They were just, like, really bad dreams. I don't still hate you or anything."

Juliet bites her lip. "OK."

"Can I stay here tonight? Too tired to get back up."

"Yeah. Stay here." Juliet pulls the sheet over them both. Counts her breaths past twenty. "I'm not going to leave you, Rachel."

Rachel snuggles into the sheet, rolls away. "K," she mumbles, already more than half-asleep. "Mm-K."

_Don't you leave me either, you hear? Don't you leave me here on this planet, alone._

Juliet closes her eyes.


	15. Somewhere I Have Never Travelled

_"Maybe you don't like your job, maybe you didn't get enough sleep._  
_Nobody likes their job, nobody got enough sleep._  
_Maybe you just had the worst day of your life,_  
_But there's no escape, there's no excuse, so just suck up and be nice."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Pixie"

* * *

Rachel in the upstairs bathroom is loud enough that Juliet wakes up before the alarm; it's five minutes before 5:30 a.m. _(just perfect)_ and Juliet has to be at work in an hour. She shuts her eyes against the weak twilight, listening to her sister gagging, knowing she should get up to check on Rachel and feeling like a horrible sister for not getting up immediately.

It's just that 5:30 comes too far early and this bed is faaarrrr too comfortable and she's got to drive into Flag to serve disgusting eggs and disgusting bacon and why had she never realized how disgusting eggs w- she forces herself to stop her train of thought when a wave of nausea rolls through her. Forcing her eyes open, Juliet a takes deep breath and tries to ignore Rachel's noises for another minute until she feels like she can get up.

Weak predawn light filters through the stair railing, and Rachel's laid out on the floor of the upstairs bathroom by the time Juliet gets to her. "This suuuucks," Rachel moans.

"I know. It's OK. C'mon, you want to go back to bed? Let's just drink some water first."

Rachel protests, but chemo dehydrates like crazy, and Juliet gets Rachel to at least take a few sips. Once her sister's back in bed, Juliet wonders about maybe calling in to work, because the truth is she'd just like to crash down next to Rachel herself. Rachel's second chemo was five days ago, and the after-effects should be fading in another day or so, but this has been awful. And Juliet remembers their mother; it'll get a little worse every time, probably.

Rachel's handling it all as well as anyone can (translation: badly), except she said she can't believe it actually _hurt_, losing her hair. _(You wouldn't know because you weren't around with Mom, _Juliet didn't say.) Rachel had shaved her head out in the yard a week ago. Niall and Duncan had done theirs in solidarity. (And OK, so Juliet does love her sister, but not _that_ much.)

But as nice as it would be to call in, she needs the money, saving up for that MCAT practice course, and she's got to get to Flag today anyway. The preliminary bloodwork's scheduled; they're going to find out whether their differences go right down to the bone.

It'll take awhile though, to know for sure, even if the doctors OK the preliminary tests. (And if Juliet's not a donor match..._ Just, no. No no no.)_

Now Juliet picks up Rachel's plaid flannel shirt off the floor, tries to cover her sister with it. Rachel swats her arm at Juliet. "Fucking hot," she mumbles, except it's freezing in here. Juliet lays a hand over Rachel's forehead. No fever.

Shrugging on the shirt herself (the hippies dress like lumberjacks these days; what happened to tie-dye, anyway?), Juliet shuffles downstairs, remembering to take a big step down to avoid the bottom two creaky stairs. The guys are still sleeping if they're lucky, and she should make something light for Rachel for breakfast this morning.

Except the thought of food, ugh, she's got to look at it all day at work and... This has been going on for about a week now.

OK. So scenario 1, she caught a parasite from all that unpasteurized juice the hippies have. It's so good; that and pancakes are all she wants these days. God, pancakes, thank god for the diner. Great pancakes there. If only it weren't for the eggs. They come out of _chickens_, for god's sake. It's just not right.

Scenario 2: She has her own personal form of cancer. Not leukemia. Something unique and stylish for an upperclassman-to-be.

Scenario 3: Listening to Rachel barf is starting to get to her. Entirely reasonable. It's gross. It's upsetting. Except if she can't even handle a little vomit, how's she supposed to handle dissecting cadavers and then working with real-life blood and guts? Maybe she's really not cut out to be a doctor.

No. She can handle being a doctor someday, just like she can fucking handle waitressing, gross eggs or not. She can. It's just some kind of test, and Juliet enjoys doing well on tests, after all. Best way in the world to get her parents to notice her, once upon a time.

Juliet slowly realizes she's staring at the kitchen cabinets in her sleep-deprived state. She wishes they liked tea, toast with tea could be a good idea, their mother always drank tea. In those blue-and-white cups that probably got left out on one of those boxes on the curb, after.

Except Rachel and Juliet are sort of too young, to be tea drinkers _(please please Rachel, get to be an old lady someday. You think you're cranky now, just wait until arthritis, OK?)._

"I know the cabinets are fascinating, but we do have other forms of entertainment here."

Niall's voice breaks her reverie, and she turns to face him. "Morning," she mumbles.

"Mornin'." He nods up toward the upper level. "She OK?"

"Didn't you just come from upstairs?" _Why'd you come down to talk to ME?_

"Tried to help her before, she told me to feck off."

"She actually said 'feck'?"

Niall's eyes crinkle up at the corners. "Something like that." They stand there watching each other for a minute. Finally he clears his throat. "So... Rachel?"

"Oh. Yeah, I think so. I just... I just got her back to bed. Could you make sure she eats something later? And just keep going with the water. Remind her she'll have to go back in if she gets too dehydrated again."

Niall nods gravely, that sweet look from a moment ago having vanished from his eyes. "I will. Not working today. Nice shirt, by the way."

She can't quite stop the blush, but the kitchen is dark enough that he probably can't tell. "It's, uh. It's Rachel's."

"I figured. Suits you, though."

"I was trying to look like that guy on the paper towel logo."

Niall laughs. "Flannel's good for that. Well, I'm gonna stay up, make some coffee. Listen for Rachel and all. You go get ready for work, and I'll save you a cup of my strongest brew."

Ugh, coffee. Another awful thing she has to smell all damn day at the diner. Juliet swallows hard. "That's OK."

She decides to skip breakfast.

* * *

_Last Name_  
_Carlson_

_First, Middle_  
_Juliet, L_

_Sex_  
_F_

_Today's Date_  
_6/18/90_

_DOB_  
_6/4/70_

_Phone_  
_442-0815_

_Emergency Contact Name/Phone:_  
_Rachel Carlson or Niall ?McLaughlin? 442-0815_

_Current Address_  
_23 W. Osage St., Mtn'aire, AZ 86001_

_Permanent Address, If Different_  
_N/A?_  
_Otherwise 842 Seminole St., Key West, FL, 33040_

_Any family history of:_  
_Stroke, heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, migraines/neurological, blood clots, diabetes._  
_No, no, yes (mother/sister), no, no, no, no_

_Any medical concerns you wish to discuss today:_  
_No - just bloodwork  
_

_Date of last menstrual period (if applicable):_

Date of...

What?

Her mind goes blank and the cream-colored walls are way way WAY too fucking close all of a sudden. Her eyes are really dry, _maybe I have allergies, maybe that cat that's been hanging around or Xerxes has that really thick coat we need to brush him more he's always shedding over everything and _When... The lines of the form blur under her gaze and her fingers go clammy around the pen. Had she even... at all in Arizona? Why is she breathing so fast?

But no, freshman year it had been so erratic, she hadn't been eating enough and there were entire months she'd missed it, even one span of about four months. And it's not like she'd been eating all that much lately, what with feeling so - _no. No._ _Everything is fine._

_Everything is completely fine._

Why can't she slow down her breathing?

_Everything is fine. EVERYTHING IS COMPLETELY FUCKING FINE. _She just had it at one point and forgot. She's been so busy, so worried. Stressed, also. Stress can do that, for sure.

_6/1_, she writes.

Everything is fine. Except she still can't remember how to breathe because_ no really, everything is fine, it's nothing it's nothing it's nothing THINK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE._

They draw her blood, ask if she has any more concerns, she says no_ (no no no no)_ and when she's driving back to work, she turns up the radio so loud the windows shake.

* * *

That night she tears apart the bathroom. Or, tears it apart as quietly as she can. She shares the bathroom with Duncan. There are no tampons anywhere in that fucking bathroom.

But that last bag. The gray one under her bed. She finds it there, the one she hadn't quite finished unpacking all those weeks ago. Some dressy clothes in there, the ones she doesn't need here. The book she'd finished reading (The Stand, unabridged) on the bus ride here. And a half-full box of tampons. And she's been here for...

_It's just stress it's just not eating enough it's just it could be anything it's not that it's not._

She can't get in enough air to breathe all of a sudden, but she yanks open the door of her closet, grabs as many hanging articles of clothing as her arms can envelop. Jams her face into the shirt on the end, stuffs her mouth with fabric and screams.

Her fear comes out muffled.

* * *

Saturday night's party is at Akihiko's. Officially it's a birthday party for both Allie and Juliet; unofficially it's a wig party. Everyone's been ordered to wear the weirdest one they can find. Juliet's at work beforehand, and as much as she wants to go home and lock her bedroom door and never come out ever ever EVER again... People are expecting her to show.

_Nothing's going on. Nothing's the matter. It's nothing._

The party's in full swing when she arrives, Duncan and Akihiko grilling out in the front, blaring speakers propped in the windows. Rachel's donning a rainbow-colored clown wig, and she's settled in on the green plaid couch surrounded by people.

"Hey!" Allie barks at Juliet. "No wig, no entrance!"

"No shirt, I'll service!" some guy calls from across the room.

"Fuck off, Jason!" Rachel yells, then turns back to the rest of them. "Anyway, Allie obviously just wants all the birthday glory for herself."

"Yep. That's why I still come to these things. The glory."

"Flock of Seagulls, very inventive." Niall sidles up to them, and Allie smirks in victory.

But Niall's wearing a silver-glitter thing with strands down to his shoulders, and it's getting harder for Juliet to not-smile the longer she looks at him.

"Can I get you a drink, O Wig-less One?" Niall asks.

Juliet nods, and they abandon the others, find the keg to the side of the house. "Have you chosen a poem from your drunken repertoire yet?"

"Ol' Edward Estlin." He winks at her.

Juliet takes the red plastic cup. She tries to remember her enthusiasm for... anything. "I probably... I, I, I might have to take Rachel home early."

"Actually, I'm not drinking. Told her I'd handle the driving. It's your birthday party. Belated, but still!"

Juliet averts her eyes. "How are we getting a drunken poetry recitation if you're not drinking?"

_"You _said it had to be drunken. I never did, did I?"

"Will you do it now?" she asks softly.

They sit on the battered picnic table around the side of the house. She looks up at the stars, thinking about that astronomy class she'd like to find time for, sometime.

Niall begins:

_"Somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond_  
_any experience,your eyes have their silence:_  
_in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,_  
_or which i cannot touch because they are too near_

_your slightest look will easily unclose me_  
_though i have closed myself as fingers,_  
_you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens_  
_(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose_

_or if your wish be to close me, i and_  
_my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,_  
_as when the heart of this flower imagines_  
_the snow carefully everywhere descending;_  
_nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals_  
_the power of your intense fragility:whose texture_  
_compels me with the color of its countries,_  
_rendering death and forever with each breathing"_

Juliet's not sure exactly why she wants to cry, but she finds herself wondering exactly what Jack's doing right now, the air-conditioner rattling in his little apartment in LA, the way he rubs his hand over his entire face when he's tired, his car floor covered with all the coffee cups, his concerned crimped-up forehead when she needed to talk about her mother, and she wonders if he's drinking too much, if he's seeing anyone else, if he's taking care of himself, if he's thinking of her. She's not supposed to be thinking about him at all, not unless she was thinking angry thoughts and then it's allowed.

That was the rule she made for herself, but now it feels like she's caught in a tangle of thorns, unable to move an inch without being sliced open. Her eyes are too full, and she looks away from Niall, blinking, and a tear rolls down each cheek.

_"(i do not know what it is about you that closes_  
_and opens;only something in me understands_  
_the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)_  
_nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands"_

Juliet wipes her face as discreetly as she can before turning back to him again. As Niall finishes, he's looking toward the house. Through the windows, Juliet sees Rachel's still on the couch, but leaning against Jeff, who's got both arms around her. Rachel's wearing a short blue wig now (Jeff's, Juliet remembers from before), and the clown wig is on the back of the couch, and Jeff's touching Rachel's face.

"Do you want to get out of here?" Niall blurts.

"Yes," she says firmly.

* * *

**The poem is "somewhere i have never travelled" by e.e. cummings. Punctuation and grammar original.**

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**Next chapter coming soon.**


	16. To the Universe

_"I am a poster girl with no poster,_  
_I am thirty-two flavors and then some_  
_and I'm beyond your peripheral vision_  
_so you might want to turn your head."_

- Ani DiFranco, "32 Flavors"

* * *

The noise of the party fades out as they dig their heels into the hard-packed dirt road, to Niall's truck parked three houses down.

"Wait," she says once they're settled. "Could I drive?"

Niall pauses, then jumps out of the truck. Her stomach flips as they cross at the front bumper. Stupid. He's in love with Rachel, even if Rachel isn't in love with him.

The engine growls as she pulls onto the road and she likes it, pressing the pedal hard. The truck bounces, the windows rattle.

Niall is gripping the door handle. "Slow down a little, OK? The streets are ballsch out here."

She has no idea what _ballsch_ means, but she gets the idea, eases up. "Where should we go?"

"Few miles up, get on the 40?"

"OK."

They drop into silence. At Route 40, she bears down on the gas pedal again. The power lines dip and rise, streetlights streaking by at what seems like warp speed. Trees blur into a flowing black scarf. She's not sure she's ever driven so fast in her entire life.

It's half an hour before Niall points at an exit. He directs Juliet down a couple of roads, apologizing when she has to make a U-turn.

"Do you know where we're going?" she finally asks. _Great, getting murdered in the woods. Why does that always seem like it's about to happen? Need to stop reading so much blood and gore all the time._

"It's been a long time. Trying to remember, but - oh, turn here." They pull into an empty parking lot, the gravel crunching under the tires. "We're here. Sort of. We have to walk a little." He points to a sign.

"Is this is... a hiking trail or something?"

"Something like that. C'mon."

She pauses, tracing her fingers over the logo in the center of the steering wheel - _Ford_. (Why does it suddenly feel like she's forgetting something? She hates that feeling.) In one swift move, she unbuckles her seatbelt, and is out of the car, slamming the door with a force she never would have normally associated with herself.

Niall glances at her, then turns toward the trail. Juliet follows, looking up at the moon and trying not to feel anything. She remembers that night Jack drove them to that overlook, the night he told her about his father. What was the point of any of that, really? She's shaking with anger or adrenaline or fear or she doesn't even know.

As the path slopes upward, the trail grows narrower, but they've been walking single-file all along. The last three hundred feet are steep; they're both breathing hard by the time they reach the top.

"You OK? Feeling better? Sorry, I should've checked before we came out here like this."

"Huh?"

"Heard you getting sick this morning. All right now?"

She nods. She feels fucking _dandy_, OK? All this is absolutely fucking spectacular. The path opens up, and Juliet realizes they're at the edge of a jagged cliff, a thin creek twisting below. An abandoned railroad bridge joins their side to the cliff across the ravine.

"I used to come out here with your sister a lot," Niall says, bending down to touch the red dirt with two fingers.

"It's beautiful," she admits.

"Yeah." He picks up a pebble, rolls it around in his hand.

Juliet looks out across the ravine to the other side. Her eyes follow the bridge back to where they're standing. "That's not in use anymore, huh?"

"Not for a long time, I don't think."

"Well, then." She squares her shoulders, starts toward it.

Niall stands up straight. "Wait a sec, we'd kill ourselves up there."

Fear of heights? So. What. She's starting to think there's a lot more to be afraid of than heights. Her lungs contract and she just has to try this. Just has to test the universe, just for tonight. "No, we won't. It's wide enough; we'll be careful."

"That thing looks like it's a hundred years old! What if it's all rotted out?"

She clenches her jaw, her hands folding and unfolding, fists and then not. "Then I'll find out."

The bridge is wide enough for two trains to pass each other, if they had to. The tracks, dark orange from the rust, are as rich and dark as November leaves, or the color of dried blood. Juliet shrugs off the part of her brain telling her not to do this. Creeps out onto the bridge, her limbs trembling.

She expects the bridge to at least creak under her weight, but instead it's silent.

Halfway out, Juliet stops and sits cross-legged, facing north. She looks back to Niall, who's just watching her from the edge. _Come on_ is on the tip of her tongue, but she stays quiet. Her heart rate is starting to slow, and the metal isn't cracking and everything is fine. _Everything is completely fine. Everything is going to be fine. Nothing's wrong. Nothing._

Niall finally reaches her, sitting gingerly next to her. "Jesus, Juliet," he says quietly.

"I know," she whispers.

"You're not yourself tonight."

_Then who else am I?_ she doesn't say. They watch the scene before them, the moon on the trees, casting down into the ravine below. The rusty metal smells like iron, like blood.

"I should have brought some beers, or something. You're missing your party."

She hold up her hand, her fingers curled. Once he realizes she's holding an imaginary bottle, he does the same, and they bump knuckles. "To missing parties," she says.

"To the railroads," he says.

After a long time, long enough for Juliet to start thinking that sitting here is less scary and more cold, Niall coughs a little. "You miss him?"

"...Who?"

"Your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend anymore." Niall knows that. He needs to shut up. (Is Juliet going to have to call Jack? About... About this? If it's really... what it might be? Except it's not. It's just not. She's just overreacting.)

"Sorry." He doesn't look sorry.

"I'm sorry about Rachel, you know."

Niall flinches. "I just... For God's sakes, Juliet."

"Sorry." She doesn't sound sorry.

He looks out over the valley. "You know, I always thought I'd have stuff figured out by now."

Juliet closes her eyes tightly, trying to ward off whatever emotion is trying to escape from her right now. "Me too."

"You have it figured out, Jules. A lot more than the rest of us. You're still in school. You're gonna be a doctor. That's amazing."

Juliet nods, her eyes still jammed closed. Her face hurts from not crying, and she doesn't want to be here anymore. She wants to be warm in her bed alone with the covers over her head_, forever and ever amen._

"You know," he says, "when you're little, it's like life is full of endless possibilities. Like maybe there are millions and millions of ways your life could go. And then when you're, I don't know, let's say, twelve or thirteen, you've kind of set your interests already, and they might change a little, but basically they're just..." He shrugs. "And then you get shipped off to college - well, maybe - and then you have to pick a major and act like you know how you're going to shape the whole rest of your life."

Well, now _this_ is getting fucking depressing. "And the possibilities just keep getting smaller and smaller like the universe is just closing in on you," she finishes for him. It's meant to sound sarcastic, but she's not quite sure she pulls it off. (What would she even say to Jack? _No_. It'll be OK. It'll all sort itself out and she's just worrying for no reason.)

"The universe is expanding, though."

Juliet laughs unexpectedly. It feels... good, she decides. _I think maybe it doesn't matter who we were,_ she wants to tell him, suddenly,_ it only matters who we are. _She wants this desperately to be true.

He holds up another imaginary beer; she holds up hers. "To the universe," Niall says.

"To the universe," she says.

* * *

Is she supposed to take a test, or something? That's what people do in these situations, right?

It's just that in between her job - they finally gave her some dinner shifts, and the tips are picking up, especially when she wears that cleavage-bearing shirt Rachel lent her - and then her two summer courses at NAU have started - Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy and Introduction to Technical Writing (she'd wanted to take Film as Literature but it would just be for fun and she's not sure 'fun' is the way to go), and then of course there's always always Rachel to look after.

It's just that things are really, really, really busy right now.

By the beginning of July Rachel's been hospitalized twice, both times for dehydration. "Can't you just IV me up at home yet?" Rachel had whined to her the second time, which at least means her attitude is staying good (or bad, depending on how one might look at it). Neither hospital stay was more than 36 hours, anyway.

And then, for God's sake, their father came for two weeks, and Stephanie for one of those. They'd stayed in a motel, but still, that was stressful in its own way. Obviously Dad is as thoroughly freaked about Rachel out as the rest of them, which at the very least reassured Juliet that he does actually care about them, beyond her just being a black hole for out-of-state tuition checks. But Stephanie was a hover-er, practically sandblasting the kitchen, and the other roommates just gave them pitiful looks and stayed out or in their rooms as much as possible. Dad tried taking them out for dinner, but Rachel only felt like eating half the time, and Juliet probably... well, about the same.

He'd offered about fifteen times to just bring them both to Florida. "You don't look too good, either, Julie."

Juliet had chewed a little on the edge of her water glass. "Thanks, Dad, that's really kind of you to say."

Rachel had smirked. "Jules is running herself ragged between me and trying to save up for MCAT money."

"Rachel..." Juliet muttered.

"What's this about the MCATs?" Stephanie asked.

"It's nothing."

"Juliet's trying to save up for the MCAT review course because she's being an idiot and it's like eight hundred dollars."

_Tattletale. _Juliet had shot Rachel the most searing glare she could muster. She just hated asking her father for stuff. He'd covered her mother's expenses for a really long time, first after the divorce and then practically the entire length of her illness. And he had paid Rachel's tuition, and he's paying Juliet's now, and they were only his responsibility because he'd signed a piece of paper in 1972. Frankly, it made her feel like shit half the time, and then guilty the other half.

"That's a lot of money," he said thoughtfully. "Tell you what, I'll give you half."

She blushed. "You really don't have t-"

"Well, maybe I want to."

_"See?"_ Rachel asked pointedly, as the waiter brought their food to the table, and Juliet felt her stomach lurch.

_Grrrrreeaattt, this again._ First she has to feel all guilty and uncomfortable, then Rachel's sticking her nose where it doesn't belong, and, _God_, that pasta thing just looks awful, and why in the FUCK did Stephanie order the fish? _Deep breaths,_ she reminded herself, taking a small sip of water. "Thanks, Dad," she'd said quietly, and she decided to risk it. She reached out and squeezed the back of his hand, and he'd patted hers with his other hand, and it was sort of A Nice Moment(TM), after all.

So it's really that she's just been so busy, is all, and it's amazing that he's going to give her half the money, but now she's going to have to spend a lot of time deciding whether to take Kaplan's review course or the Princeton Review, and really that's going to take a lot of time at the library and then maybe she can consult with the NAU pre-med students about which they felt was more valuable, and...

* * *

Juliet had thought they would just tell her over the phone whether she was a preliminary match for Rachel. "Actually, the doctor would like to talk to you, dear," the receptionist (Margie? Maggie?) says.

"Should I... should I bring my sister?"

Juliet heard Margie-Maggie shuffling papers. "No, that... that won't be necessary. Just you. Could you do, hmm, let's see..." More shuffling of papers. "Tuesday at 9:30?"

"Next Tuesday?"

"Tomorrow. July tenth."

Her heart's beating fast already. So she's not a match for Rachel and they're going to break the news to her alone. Awesome.

* * *

On Tuesday at 9:30 she suddenly wishes she's made Rachel go with her after all. They sit her in an office, not even an exam room, and she just sits there and sits there and sits there with her fucking heart racing the too-slow ticks of the clock, probably at least a beat and a half for every second, and she's wearing sandals that Jack had always liked and Rachel's green plaid shirt that's sort of become her own, now.

Dr. Long White Coat shuts the door behind him. "Juliet, it's nice to see you again," he says smoothly, extending a hand.

His lab coat says Ronald T. Nichols, M.D., and actually, she does sort of remember him as one of the doctors explaining the lengthy bone marrow donation procedure to her and Rachel. "Hi... You, too," she manages. Which is a huge lie, but it's also the kind of lie that's supposed to happen. And no one is ever happy to see an oncologist, right? _(Remember that, Jack.)_

Nichols takes a seat, opens his folder. "Now I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but to start off... I'm sorry to tell you that you're not a match for Rachel."

Her first instinct is to cry, but instead she focuses on the spine of a blue book on the shelf just beyond his left shoulder, and she focuses on that until her breathing begins again. "...OK. OK. Thank you... for letting me know." Juliet wraps her fingers around the strap of her bag, starts to stand. "Thank you."

"Juliet - wait."

She eases back down into her chair. Uncomfortable. Brown vinyl seat, metal arms. Ugly as hell. When she's a doctor someday, maybe she'll have a nicer office. "OK?"

Nichols searches her eyes for a moment. "Did... ah... Dr. Casey was supposed to talk to you too."

"I haven't seen anyone else. Just you."

He flushes. "Well... as you might know, we generally also screen for certain conditions that would rule out a bone marrow donation, either permanently or for the time being, such as anemia. And you probably are aware by now, but we just thought we would check..."

Anemia? That's all this was? Juliet is flooded with relief. "I... I have _anemia?"_

"Well, you... No. No, you don't have anemia. But, Juliet, you did test positive for pregnancy."

She starts staring at that blue book on the shelf again. Her pulse is in her ears and he's still talking talking talking, something about options and help if she's uninsured and he can find someone for her to talk to right now if she needs, but mostly she can't hear it, can't hear him, can't even see the titles of the books on the shelves. Is she actually breathing? Because breathing is really really important, or at least, it used to be, way back before now, before she was wishing that she'd actually just thrown herself off that stupid railroad bridge.

_To the universe, _she thinks._ Thanks for nothing.  
_


	17. The Crack in the Door

_"'Cause somewhere between Hollywood and its pretty happiness_  
_and an anguish so infinite it's anybody's guess_  
_is a place where people are all teachers,_  
_and this is just one long class."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Knuckle Down"

* * *

Facts.

She's always appreciated them, always found them easy to work with. History, hard sciences, math, whatever. You take a bunch of facts, or formulas, and they'll construct your entire reality for you. Facts are so easy to understand.

Except.

Fact: She's totally, utterly knocked up.

Fact: They had _meant_ to call her two weeks ago, but the initial results got put aside. It wasn't until after they got the donor results in that they'd realized Margie-Maggie was on vacation at the time, and no one else had picked up her file.

Fact: It's not _really_ their fault, which she tells them.

Fact: The doctor has offered to tell Rachel she's not a match. Juliet says it's OK, she'll do it.

Fact: She can't seem to look him in the eye.

Fact: She can't seem to bring herself to use the p-word.

"I know you're young," Dr. Ronald T. Nichols, M.D. says to her. "But it wouldn't be right if I didn't tell you that there's a very slim possibility, if you carried the pregnancy to term, that your child would be a match. But it's an extremely small chance, and no one would judge you if you made other decisions. Your medical information is private. Your sister wouldn't know anything unless you choose to tell her."

She nods, blankly. He looks uncomfortable. Juliet can't really blame him; he's an oncologist, used to seeing people upset, sick, grieving, in denial. Now here he's gotten stuck telling her what in other situations would be the best news possible, and she doesn't even have the decency to act grateful. Not that he's expecting to her. So in a way, at least she's a tiny bit grateful, for that.

"...Are you all right? I can get..."

Who, the counselor for the people with cancer?

"I'm fine." Automatic pilot, that's what it's called. She feels like a robot, a ghost, a solid block of ice. "Anything else?" Blinking. She should do that, sometime. It's been, well, a couple of minutes. Since she'd last blinked. Maybe. Or something. So she forces herself to blink. Her head feels like it's stuffed full of cotton balls. Her chest is empty, a hollow where her heart is supposed to be.

_You've really gone and done it now_, she tells herself as she waits for the elevator down to the lobby.

* * *

She tells Rachel they're not a match. They both cry in the kitchen, and Juliet's relieved that she actually manages to. The tears don't feel real, though. Rachel goes to bed early, and Juliet borrows her car and drives out, alone, to the railroad bridge. It's less scary, this time.

Sitting out there breathing in the rust, she wonders what it is about the smell of old metal that makes her feel panicked and loved all at once, an ache in her bad shoulder, the one with the muscles all stretched out for no good reason at all.

The thing is, she's supposed to call Jack, isn't she?

But then, she was _supposed_ to do a lot of things. She was supposed to keep taking her pills. She was supposed to keep to her vow of not calling him. She was supposed to not sleep with him again. She was _supposed_ to deal with this weeks ago.

Funny, she was always good at doing the "supposed-to" stuff, until Jack.

What would she even say to him? _Remember that night I was pathetic and then we got drunk and by the way, did you even realize you didn't use a condom? And sure, I threw out my pills in a passive-aggressive display of total immaturity because, by the way, remember that time you fucked someone else? Yeah. Those were fun times, weren't they? Well, anyway, you knocked me up. And this has all just been awesome, so... thanks._

When she gets home that night - late, after two - the house is silent. Xerxes is curled up her bed. She misses Georgie, hopes he's getting lots of belly rubs and Mailman cookies in Key West. Xerxes isn't so bad, though.

Dropping onto the bed fully dressed, she reaches over, turns out the lamp. Kicks off her shoes, which both fall to the floor with a thunk. She's not getting undressed tonight, doesn't want to think about any of it anymore, the changes she's been noticing and pretending she didn't.

She dreams, that night, of being trapped in a room full of glaring people. Up in a little witness box, her hands cuffed in front of her, and they're all sitting lined up in disapproving rows, agreeing that they're going to kill her for what she's done.

And then Jack's face peeks in through the crack in the door.

And she lives.

* * *

The Planned Parenthood is a homely little storefront in a strip mall, a couple blocks from NAU. She sits waiting on a green couch for close to an hour, watching "Divorce Court" on TV, which is exactly what she and Rachel do this time every day when they're both home. When Rachel has the energy, they yell stuff at the screen (Rachel's ruder than Juliet; go figure).

Finally they take her back, check her weight (which is up - just fantastic), blood pressure (which is normal). Have her pee in a cup as a pointlessly awkward formality, stab her finger for whatever exact same test they already ran at Rachel's stupid, lying, incompetent doctors' office.

She's sitting on the table by herself, wondering if she can ditch the little paper gown and put on her clothes and just go home and pretend like everything's normal and she didn't go and do something incredibly fucking stupid because she was drunk and lonely.

But then there's a knock at the door, and a short woman in a white coat with shiny brown hair is stepping into the room, and Juliet forces as much of a polite smile as she can manage.

"Juliet, right? Dr. Myra Olsen, nice to meet you. Or, maybe not so nice, depending on what you're thinking."

Juliet feels herself relax a little. The fake smile fades, but in a good way.

Dr. Olsen hands Juliet a form. "OK, so as you told us, you are pregnant, here's your positive result. Not a big surprise anymore, but probably a big surprise at the time, right? Hang onto that form in case you need it later; if you apply for WIC they'll want to see it."

Juliet's already starting to tilt her head.

"Women, Infants and Children. Public assistance, if you decide to raise your baby and you need help. We can have a counselor go over that with you later, if you want."

Public assistance? _What? _Juliet just gives her a blank look._ This is not supposed to be happening._

"Now, do you have any idea of how far along you might be? We're going to do an exam to confirm, but this will help us get started in the right direction."

Juliet forces herself to focus. "It, it probably happened in May. The... the middle of May."

"OK, that's something, we probably won't have to use the transvaginal ultrasound, so that's a good thing, right? Just scoot back on the table."

Juliet's not exactly sure what the hell a transvaginal ultrasound is, just a vague idea, and that vague idea actually sounds extremely fucking unpleasant. The doctor examines her, chattering all the while, asking Juliet about morning sickness, how she's been holding up, if she's in school, what kind of classes she likes best, what she likes to do for fun (_Anything but having strange women's hands up me,_ Juliet wants to answer). But she knows this doctor is just trying to put her at ease, so she makes herself answer. Automatic pilot, again.

Eventually the doc stops asking her questions, and Juliet realizes the exam is over, and Olsen's puttering around with equipment in the corner. "I'm going to do the ultrasound now. We just take a look at what's going on, inside. If you don't want to keep the pregnancy, or you don't know what you want to do yet, you don't have to look at the screen. I can just" - she gestures, swinging her right hand around in a circle - "turn the screen toward me."

"I... I don't want to see," she manages.

"OK. Let me just take a peek, do some measurements." The doctor squirts ice-blue gel onto Juliet's lower belly. "Sorry - cold," she says when Juliet winces. She spins the screen around, flips a button. Swirls the wand-thingy over Juliet's skin, starts adjusting buttons.

Juliet's tears slide down the sides of her face. She curls her toes tight, wondering what's on that screen, but trying not to. This is all impossibly unfair, all of it.

"Looks like you're about 10 weeks." Dr. Olsen flips off the machine. "Would you like to speak to a counselor after you get dressed?"

"What... what for?"

"She can go over your options with you - have the baby, put it up for adoption, have a termination."

Juliet blinks. "Well, none of those sound very good. Keep going."

The doctor smiles a little. "Sense of humor, good."

Sense of humor? Is that what it is? It's just sort of that she's losing patience for this whole I-am-woman-so-empowered-let's-all-prance-around-and-talk-about-our-female-organs schtick. "I... I can't have a baby." Is she killing her sister? If she does this?

"Well, we encourage all our patients to at least get some information, go home, think about it. I will tell you that if you're fairly certain what you'd like to do, that's very helpful; terminations get more difficult and more expensive after twelve weeks, so we can schedule you so you can come in under that window."

All right, two weeks.

And this can all be over? Why had she waited so long? Juliet nods.

"OK, why don't you get dressed, and you can just go down to Room 4 when you're ready. I'll have our counselor, Lacey, meet you there. She can go over your options and answer any questions about the procedure. Do you have any more questions for me?"

"No." Only every question in the entire world.

* * *

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	18. Whoever

_One breath at a time is an acceptable plan,_  
_she tells herself._

- Ani Difranco, "Tamburitza Lingua"

* * *

If she'd been awake enough to hear Niall's car in the driveway, she probably would have slid off the couch and headed for her room.

Except when she'd come home from work tonight, suddenly there was just... this sort of achy cramping pain, sending a shooting tremor up her right hip every now and then. It wasn't all that bad, considering, but maybe... maybe this could just end on its own?

Anyway, she'd made the appointment: Friday, July 20. Rachel's next chemo is the 25th, and the counselor had told her she'd be fine by then to help her sister.

So. Friday, 10 a.m., $275 (so much for what she'd socked away for the MCAT course), twilight anesthesia, four hours start to finish, although the "procedure" itself is only supposed to take 15 minutes. (Would have been even shorter, if she'd dealt with all of this earlier.) And they'd told her that she wasn't supposed to drive herself home afterward.

Since then she's sort of been wondering what to do on that front.

If someone was home when she showed up in a cab, that would raise all sorts of questions. And a round-trip cab ride from Mountainaire up to Flag wouldn't be cheap, either. She thought maybe she could chance it, drive herself there, and then if things were really bad, she could just drive herself the couple blocks to NAU? And call someone on a payphone, say she'd been in the library and had started feeling really sick, could she just get a ride back to the house?

Of course, there was also the crazy concept of actually _telling_ someone what was going on, but then, that wasn't exactly Juliet's style. And if she did tell someone... who? Definitely not Rachel. Maybe Niall, but then, he's Catholic, and... Besides, in eight days it'll all just be over and she can just put this behind her and go on exactly like before.

Right?

Rachel's staying over at Jeff's tonight, and Niall was working the night shift, and Duncan is... wherever the hell he is, probably at Allie and Micah's, and when she'd gotten home, she'd dropped onto the couch, lights still on, and she was exhausted and things had just... _hurt_, so she'd simply conked out.

Now she's screwing up her face, slowly coming back to consciousness, and Niall's opening the door, bringing in a cool rush of night air. She'd try to pretend she's still sleeping, except she opens her eyes without meaning to, and she knows he sees her. "Hey."

"Hey, yourself. Sorry to wake you."

"Mmph... That's OK." The pain is sort of still there, except the ache in her right hip has moved to her left. But it's not really any worse than before. "What time is it?"

"Little after two." Niall tosses his keys onto the counter. "Gonna make some food, you hungry?"

"Now?"

"Hey, this is my dinnertime. You hungry or not?"

If it's possible to be both nauseous and hungry (and Juliet knows by now, it definitely is), then yes. She nods, sits up, runs a hand through her hair.

"Pancakes OK?"

She pauses. That's... pretty much all she's wanted to eat lately. Blinking the sleep out of her eyes offers her the opportunity to pause, wonder if he's onto her. "Sure. You want some help?"

"Nah, you stay there."

She arches her back, stretching before curling forward slightly, her elbows on her knees. He gets out the ingredients, she leans over and hits the button on the stereo. Her R.E.M. tape is in there, and she sees Niall scowl a little. "I'm sorry we can't all have highly specialized musical tastes," she tells him.

Her hip twinges again and she frowns. What the hell is going on? When Niall turns toward to the stovetop, she reaches down and squeezes her hip a little, trying to relieve some of the pressure. She gets up, goes to the bathroom. Verdict: Can't even miscarry properly.

Back in the main room, Niall's putting two plates of pancakes on their bar counter. The maple syrup's between them, but why does she really really want strawberry jam on them instead? Juliet veers off to the fridge, rattling around through the condiments on the door. He gives her a look when she sits down next to him with the jar, doesn't say anything.

For awhile they eat in silence, but eventually it's just her shoveling in the food still, and he's pushing his around the plate. "What's up?" she finally asks, forcing herself to stop eating.

"Tonight was my last night of work."

"What?"

"They told me a week ago, they're laying off a few of us. This damn recession."

She takes a long sip of water. "I'm sorry."

"Thinking of enrolling back in school this fall. Poetry." He smiles a little. "Or astronomy. You know, diversify my interests a little."

"That's good."

"Well, a friend of mine in Denver has some shows coming up. Thomas, the one in the band? You know. Invited me to roadie for 'em. Just a few weeks, but it's good money."

Why does she feel so let down? "So when do you leave?"

Niall shrugs. "Don't think I'm going."

"Why not?"

"Don't wanna leave where... where I'm needed." The way he's looking at her, oh god, does he suspect something? Does he know? No, he's just talking about Rachel... Right? _Eight more days, _she reminds herself. She doesn't need to tell him. She can do this by herself. She _can._

It's just, she can't tell Rachel. Rachel has enough going on, and then there's this thing her sister has going on with Jeff, and Rachel's just been so happy lately, or at least when she's been feeling well, and Juliet can't stack another burden onto her sister. Stress can make it even harder to fight cancer, to rebound after each chemo session. And she can't have Rachel worrying about her, trying to take care of her.

And then there's the bone marrow issue. Even if she never said a word about the possibility to Rachel, would Rachel wonder, anyway? The whole time Rachel would sit in the waiting room while Juliet was in the back, getting rid of that possibility? What would her sister even do with that knowledge? No, she can't tell Rachel.

"We'll be fine. I promise. And there are plenty of other people around, if... if we need help."

He purses his lips, thinking.

"So when do you leave?" she asks again.

"Then... I guess the day after tomorrow."

* * *

She's in the Cline Library at NAU when curiosity starts to get the better of her, but Cline probably isn't going to have what she needs, or if it does... Well, with the way her luck's been going lately, someone she knows will walk up to her at exactly the wrong moment.

And, well, she could use a break anyway.

She doesn't have a car right now, but the public library's only a mile away. It's one of those perfect Northern Arizona days, the sky like a Degas landscape, only Flag's elevation is three times that of Madrid's, but anyway, that same ridiculous royal blue and the tiny perfect puffy clouds, stippled and repeated in endless patterns across the blue, and, if she can be vain for just a second, there's none of that Miami or L.A. humidity that tightens up her curls.

The walk's long enough that she almost changes her mind, but the weather keeps her going.

Apparently it's story hour at the public library, and she's never thought much about that one way or another before, but she turns her head away sharply as she walks past that front room, the moms with their little kids, and somewhere a baby is babbling.

She consults the card catalog and finds what she needs in an empty row, opens the book quickly to the back glossary. If anyone walks by, they won't see the title, "What to Expect When You're Expecting."

_Like so many pregnancy symptoms, round ligament pain (which is just a fancy name for those growing pains in that burgeoning belly of yours) is probably something you never expected. What's causing them? The ligaments that support your belly are stretching out (and getting thinner); and as your belly gets heavier, the weight pulls on the ligaments, causing pain (sharp or dull). The best thing to do is get off your feet and get comfy._

The book makes it sound so... cutesy. Well, anyway, at least now she knows what the hell is going on.

She's growing.

It's a really really bad idea to let herself look at the rest of the page, but then Juliet realizes she's actually on one of the pages for 10 weeks. Well, isn't she just a textbook case. It might be interesting to find something more scientific on all of this, but then she supposes eventually she'll be in med school and will get to learn all about it, anyway. It'll be at least five years until she has a OB-GYN rotation, though. In five years, she'll be a third-year medical student and _this_ will all be just one long bad memory.

Or she'd have a child in preschool.

She really shouldn't have let herself focus on anything else on this page. There's an picture of what her b... what it looks like right now, and it's just too much right now. She slams the book closed.

This was a bad idea.

* * *

On Wednesday night, July 18, Juliet has a hard time falling asleep. Rachel was upset because the thing with Jeff had imploded, and the two of them had stayed up kind of late painting their nails, which actually marked the first time in their entire lives that they'd done such a thing together.

It was actually kind of... sweet. Like she really does have a sister, for real.

At one point she'd almost given in and told Rachel what's going on. As the appointment looms closer, she's been finding herself getting more nervous about it. But by this time in two days it'll be in the past and Juliet can just focus on helping her sister get through her shit (four chemo sessions down, four to go), and her summer courses, and building her MCAT fund back up again. And then Niall will come back and by then the summer will almost be over and she'll go back to school and... and no one will ever have to know.

Juliet tries to imagine fitting in with her L.A. friends again, and it's hard. She'd grown apart from almost all of them when she was spending so much time with Jack. Her own fault, of course. And none of them would know about... about this. And there'd just be an endless stream of studying and probably some parties, but none of the poetry or the silly theme parties or the.. just the realness of this life here.

Thinking about all of this is not a good way to get to sleep, but eventually, she does drift off. Only she dreams she's hanging onto the edge of that rusted railroad bridge with one hand, the other grasping desperately at chains that have wrapped themselves around her middle, right where the baby would be. And her fingers are bloody as she tries to hang onto the edge but right as she loses her grip, a man's head pops over the edge of the bridge and he grabs her hand before she falls too far and his hair is hanging down and his face is desperate and he's begging her not to leave him and _I got you... I got you. _And she's telling him she loves him, over and over again even though she's never even seen him before in her life.

And even though they're outside and she's dangling from the bridge over the endless fucking ravine, somehow there's a heavy thump overhead, and she snaps awake in the watery dawn of her bedroom with the cracked paint and the leftover Phish poster she'd never bothered to take down after Allie moved out.

Juliet's breathing fast, that had all seemed so _real_, and she's touching her waist but nothing's there and then she wonders about that thump and gets a really, really bad feeling and pops out of bed.

Rachel's door is half open and her sister is just... lying on the floor. "Rachel," Juliet gasps.

Her sister groans and presses a hand to her forehead. "Feel like shit," she mumbles.

Juliet moves her sister's hand aside, presses her own hand to Rachel's skin, which is flushed pink and way too hot. "Rach, you're burning up." Her words come out hoarse and bumping into each other and way way way too scared.

The thermometer can't be right, can it? 103.6?

Juliet looks around the room desperately like there's just going to be someone somehow standing there waiting to tell her exactly what to do. Funny how she keeps expecting that.

"OK. OK. Come on. We've gotta take you in. Come on." She tries to get Rachel into a standing position, except Rachel's half-limp in her arms, coughing. "Come on, Rachel. Come on. We're gonna get you in. They'll make you feel better. Come on."

Somehow Rachel's feet start moving, and she realizes she should have actually put shoes on her sister before she'd started this little endeavor, but her heart's pounding and anyway, it's not like they're going to deny them help because Rachel's not wearing shoes, right? It's a hospital, not a 7-11.

Juliet grabs a pair of Rachel's shoes from the floor, and once they're in the hall, she hurls the shoes over the edge of the second-floor railing, where they clunk into the wall next to the front door. Not bad. Somehow she manages to get Rachel downstairs, outside, into the passenger seat of the Nova. She runs back into the house to swap her own cotton shorts for jeans, slips her feet into sneakers without socks.

(Her hand shakes as it turns the key in the ignition.)

At the hospital, they take Rachel back right away, give her an ice bath, hook her up to IVs for hydration, antibiotics. After a couple hours, they decide to admit her. Juliet sits in her sister's room watching the drip of the IV, wondering who she's supposed to call, what she's supposed to do. She's already peeled off all of last night's nail polish.

(What if... what if her sister dies?)

(What if her sister dies and Juliet's just...? Just alone?)

By noon, she's too hungry to ignore it, and in the cafeteria she finds a seat in the corner, by the windows, and no one else is sitting nearby and maybe she can just stay alone and she has that appointment tomorrow, and she knows now she really, really is going to be alone for it.

Nobody ever really wants to believe they'll be alone, do they? Everyone always wants to imagine that at the last minute, someone will magically come through for them, pop their head right over the edge of that rusting railroad bridge to grab you, full of promises, _I got you._

If she doesn't go to that appointment tomorrow... then what? Would she be ruining her life? Or would it mean that she could have some sort of family? Even if something happened to Rachel and she only sees her father once a year? Just a little family, just the two of them, she and... and whoever. Whoever this might become.

Across the cafeteria, a woman is leaning over, cooing at a baby in a stroller. (Why do they seem to be everywhere these days?)

Juliet closes her eyes and puts her head down on the table.


	19. Dream On

_"It's a skill I'd hoped to abandon_  
_When I got out on the open road_  
_But any more pent-up emotion_  
_And I think I'm gonna explode."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Studying Stones"

* * *

A rerun of Giligan's Island plays with the sound turned on low in Rachel's hospital room. Juliet's on the vacant second bed, her legs tucked underneath her. It hasn't rained in days and days but now a light rain outside is falling.

So that appointment? The one for Friday, at 10 a.m.?

Well. It's Friday, all right.

It's noon.

If this is all a huge mistake, well, she's not going to think about that right now. She's not going to think about anything.

Rachel's doing much better, and friends filter in and out throughout the day. Juliet's not entirely sure she's actually _existing_ inside her body right now, but she lets herself be pulled into card games as needed, fetches juice, goes to the cafeteria obediently at appropriate mealtimes.

Some doctor decides that Rachel can be released tomorrow morning, and if she continues to improve, they won't even delay Wednesday's chemo (which is just freaking awesome and should mean great times for them all).

Juliet starts gathering her things around seven. Rachel's reading an icky-looking issue of People from the nurses' station, wearing a paisley lavender bandana that always gives Juliet a weird feeling, like it used to be hers or something. Even though Juliet's not exactly the kind of person who would wear a paisley lavender bandana.

"See you tomorrow?"

Rachel looks up. "Remember to bring that cake with the file in it."

"Will do."

She stands there for a moment too long, and then hurries forward and kisses her sister's forehead before rushing out.

* * *

In the elevator, Juliet steps in next to a visibly pregnant woman, and for God's sakes, they really are _everywhere_. Then Juliet remembers that technically, there are _two_ pregnant woman in this elevator, but she hasn't even been thinking of herself as a "woman" instead of a "girl" yet... and the other word, well, that makes her brain hurt.

It makes her heart hurt, even.

Also, it's _just perfect_ that her (translation: Rachel's) car won't start down in the hospital garage. Before Juliet even thinks about it, she automatically reaches down, pulls the handle to pop the hood. What? That was stupid. Unless it's changing a tire or refilling the windshield washer fluid, she doesn't know a damn thing about cars.

Duncan tells her over the phone that he was in and out running errands, and he can swing by and get her. She sits outside the hospital, people-watching, for close to an hour. Sees an awful lot of people in scrubs or white coats. Is that still supposed to be her one day? How is she supposed to do every single thing stretching in front of her?

It's too much, and she wishes she didn't want to cry. Because Juliet's supposed to be happy, right? Isn't this what she'd wanted?

Duncan nods at her as he pulls up, and once she's in the bucket seat she feels less like crying and more like sleeping, possibly forever. "Thanks."

"No problem. Got one last errand to take care, you mind?"

"Nope." She only opens her eyes once the car stops moving, and they're in the back corner at an Exxon station. "What are we doing?"

Duncan points and Jeff's approaching the car. "Oh, hey, Juliet," Jeff says as he slides into the back seat.

Juliet plasters a sickeningly sweet smile on her face. "Hi, Jeff."

"How's Rachel?"

"Better. Coming home tomorrow."

"I, uh, I wanted to visit but I figured she'd probably kick my ass from her hospital bed."

"Probably."

Jeff digs into his back pocket, hands over a ten-dollar bill to Duncan, who trades it for a small baggie of weed. "Thanks, D. Jules, tell Rachel I wouldn't mind hearing from her, yeah?" And just like that, he's out of the car again. Oh. Duncan had meant _that_ kind of errand.

Juliet wonders what Jack would do if he knew she'd just inadvertently taken their baby on a drug deal.

God, that sounds so weird. ...Their _baby_.

Wait a second. _Their_ baby? Seriously? _Theirs? _What's she supposed to tell him? Duncan starts the car again and she feels like she should tell him not to do that to her again, she can't be a doctor if she's got a drug arrest on her record, but then she drops off the edge of reality again.

Jack. This - none of this - could possibly be fair to him. He's a medical student with an amazing future in front of him, the future she thought she could have, too. She still can, right? This wasn't just some dream she'd had, she's worked her ass off her whole life, had chosen this path as a freshman in high school. Fourteen years old and locking herself in her room with her textbooks, volunteering at a local hospital the summers after 10th and 11th grades when she wasn't taking care of her mom. That was no way to have a high school experience, but still, at least she knew who she was and where she was going.

She just wanted to Help People, capital letters.

It's like this summer, everything _about_ her just... just got lost, or something, and now maybe she's gotten so sidetracked there won't ever be a way to find her way back.

OK. Speaking of getting sidetracked... Back to Jack.

What if he's furious at her for not going through with it? Keeping the baby is pretty much the dumbest thing possible, after all. When someone gets pregnant at twenty (no wait, she was still nineteen then, even better) and wants to be a doctor, you'd think they'd be a little more sensible than that, right? Then again, she should've been a little more sensible and used birth control in the first place... right?

And even_ Jack's_ only halfway done with med school, and then afterward there's still the internship, residency, fellowship. Depending on his specialty - she's in no way convinced he's cut out for oncology, as much as she hates to agree with his father - it could turn into as much as ten _years_ more for Jack.

It all still seems so far out for her as to be almost unimaginable, but to Jack, still with such a long way to go himself - and then with what's going on with his father - what would _this_ do him? He couldn't handle this.

He couldn't.

It's too much.

But then she has this pathetic vision of herself in five or six years, standing at the door of her house (her _house_, ha), watching a little kid with a too-big backpack skipping toward a school bus. She's just standing there, her hair shiny and smooth around her shoulders, watching the bus wheeze down a street so tree-lined it looks like it's out of an old '50s TV show. And then she turns and Jack's coming up the walk from the opposite direction, his face full of sympathy and joy, and he's only just now heard, but everything's been worked out and it doesn't _matter_ anymore, and he's here now and things are finally perfect.

Duncan shakes her awake when they're back at the house.

* * *

It takes Rachel almost a week to get over the latest round of chemo, but it's the fifth one, which means she's more than halfway now. That has to count for something, right? In the meantime, Juliet swipes one of Rachel's hippie skirts, because the pants options in her dresser have suddenly grown (ha) a bit more limited. Finally she bites the bullet, goes to the mall and buys a pair of jeans and a pair of black pants for work, a size bigger than usual. She looks pretty normal, still... at least while clothed.

But this should start getting really fun, really soon.

It's also clearly going to start getting expensive. She's not going to be able to jet off to the mall every time she goes up another size, but the thought of going to Goodwill made Juliet feel far too panicky. But there's going to be medical bills, and maternity clothes, and she's going to need a crib, a stroller, baby clothes, diapers, and oh god, she's going to have to move out of the dorms mid-year and figure out about an apartment, and then there will be toys, bikes, lunch money, birthday parties, school supplies, braces, tuition. (And right now, she has 75 college credits and no car.)

She goes back to Planned Parenthood after a couple more weeks. The baby's heartbeat is so loud and fast that her own speeds up. They're not giving her another ultrasound until week 20, by which point she'll have decamped to L.A., anyway. But they give her prenatal vitamins. Pamphlets on healthy eating, signs of pregnancy complications, exercise, childbirth, nursing. She's not even close to wrapping her mind around most of this. (February 5, they tell her.)

Now Juliet's sitting there at the kitchen table, staring down at the newspaper and reading about how costs of living nationwide have been increasing out-of-proportion with income, and her chest feels too tight like it's getting seriously hard to breathe and is she going to have to take off a semester from school, but how will she afford to lose her financial aid for living expenses, and aren't people _really_ supposed to have most of their shit together before they start reproducing?

In conclusion: This was a terrible fucking idea.

Rachel ambles into the kitchen at precisely the wrong moment in Juliet's mental freakout. "That my skirt?"

Juliet's voice comes out tight. "Yes."

"Looks better on me."

"Thanks."

Rachel starts poking through the fridge. "I'm actually starving, can you believe that? You eat yet?"

"No."

"We have some berries and shit, I think Allie brought them over the other day. You know her friend Noelle, the one with the garden at her house? Noelle, the one who used to date Jeff? At least I heard she's like, fucking _awful_ in bed. According to Duncan anyway, but let me tell you, Duncan probably isn't the best judge of that sort of thing, but... Anyway, great blueberries, though, you want some?"

"Rachel, I'm pregnant."

Her sister freezes, still half inside the fridge. Slowly she backs out, turns around. Her face is wide open with shock.

"What?"

"I'm... I'm pregnant."

"Oh, _shit_. Really? Oh... Oh, _FUCK. _Who...?"

"Jack."

Rachel's face twists in confusion. "When did you see... wait a sec, you mean, you've been... _all summer?"_

Juliet looks down at the table. "Yeah."

"So..." Rachel blinks. "So you're like, what, like three months?"

"Thirteen weeks." It feels incredibly strange to be talking about this to someone who's not a Planned Parenthood employee. Someone from her actual life.

"Oh, _fuck_. Isn't it too late for..."

"Yeah." Her voice doesn't sound as brave as she's hoped.

Rachel steps forward, collapses onto a kitchen chair. "Oh, my _GOD_. Holy shit. Oh, Jules..."

Her sister looks utterly and totally floored, and also, somehow, full of pity. It's the pity that does her in, like Rachel doesn't believe Juliet can make this work, not even a little bit, and Juliet gives up entirely the charade of the past two months. Puts her head down on her arms, hiding from everything, and just gives in and cries deep sobs that fill up her lungs and make her ribs ache.

After a few seconds, she feels Rachel's hand on her back, and embarrassment floods in. "I'm - I'm s-sorry, I just - "

"It's OK," Rachel says softly.

"No, I - I shouldn't - it's just, I'm really scared." And there, she's finally said exactly what she hasn't been able to. "I'm scared, I'm so scared. I'm so scared, Rachel."

"Juliet... if anyone can do this, it's you. I know it. You took care of Mom and you still got into a great school. You take care of me, do you know how much I appreciate that? And your grades are fucking _freakishly_ good. They're going to be breaking down your damn _door_ when it's time for med school. I promise you. You're gonna be able to do whatever the hell you want, OK? _When_ever you want it. Even if this - even if this isn't a good time. But if you want to cry, go ahead and fucking cry."

So she does. She cries until she starts to feel better. Until she starts to think she can do this after all.


	20. You Learn

_"I got more and more to do,_  
_I got less and less to prove..._

_and I am trying to evolve,_  
_I'm just trying to evolve."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Evolve"

* * *

"Hey! _Julie!_ You know when I said that order was up, I meant it's up _today?"_

Juliet crams the last handful of napkins into the dispenser at the end of the counter, spins around to the back counter. Her feet hurt, she's tired, and it turns out there's an entire galaxy spiraling far beyond cranky people in a glorified chrome box at the edge of the desert. She takes a deep breath. "Well... _Andy_... thank you _so_ much for telling me. I had you pencilled in for March 1997." Juliet yanks a tray off the stack. "Silly me for sinking so _low_ as to believe that when I told you Lisa was taking over table 15, you were _actually_ listening."

Lisa shows up for the order and Juliet spins back to her own work, leaving Andy's mouth hanging open in disbelief.

That felt _good_.

* * *

It's Rachel, of course, who comes up with the con. OK, so it's not really a con - just that Juliet has slightly less than a month left working at the diner, and Rachel says Juliet needs to make the most of her time, play the odds and a whole bunch of other pointless jargon that basically means Juliet's going to need every penny she can get her hands on.

And, OK, it's not that she _needs_ maternity clothes yet, but Rachel drags her to the Goodwill anyway. The diner's never had uniforms, just a generic requirement of white top/black pants, and Rachel makes her buy two white maternity shirts. Since they're already cut with extra fabric in front, Juliet _looks_ pregnant pretty much the instant she puts on the first one in the tiny closet of a dressing room.

Her heart drops to somewhere around her knees, but then Rachel's clamoring to see, so she pushes that all away and pulls back the curtain.

So the plan goes into effect. On those weekend morning shifts, it's mostly families, or mothers at the ends of their ropes with little kids, and Juliet makes a big show of cooing at the babies, smiles extra hard even when she's not feeling like it (...which is most of the time, because she suddenly feels like a ticking timebomb of responsibility).

But the mothers love it, clearly think the whole thing is adorable, smiling curly-headed young mom-to-be enthralled with their Precious Little Munchkins, and Juliet feels like she's almost pulling one over on them, but her tips prove Rachel knew what she was doing.

Except watching those families, those mothers with their kids, well... Kids cry, they whine, they skin their knees and demand dessert. They're not just some accessory like a handbag. They come with all their own preferences and dislikes, their own personalities, and she watches the mothers discipline, encourage, scold, smile, soothe.

(Will she be really able to do that?)

Juliet procrastinates a few days on the second part of the plan. Finally Rachel finds her a loose-fitting off-the-shoulder white top and Allie digs up a black miniskirt that fits Juliet. Her target for the late-night shifts: drunk guys, all ages. "Please tell me you're kidding," Juliet says almost a little desperately after she emerges from the bathroom.

"You should've been doing this all along," Rachel smirks. "I know your coworkers do it; I've _seen_ them. Now sit down, shut up and I'll do your makeup."

"I feel like a hooker." But she sits anyway.

Here's the really weird part, the part she never saw coming: She sort of _likes_ it. The flirting. Not with the creepy old men, of course, she's all business there, _can I get you anything else, sir?_ and she doesn't smile at the_ how 'bout you, sweetheart_s - but the appreciative looks from the guys her own age? The way one holds open a door for her when she's showing up for her shift one night? And a couple of them even ask her out, but they would probably die if they knew the baggy off-the-shoulder top wasn't for fashion's sake but to conceal a certain something-that-would-have-them-running-for-the-hills. It's weird though, like it's all an act. But somehow, it makes her feel... what, appreciated? cute? beautiful? anyway.

Her night tips skyrocket - "Told you so," Rachel gloats - at least for a couple weeks, until the swell starts to get a little too obvious.

Well, that was fun while it lasted.

* * *

Rachel nags her about calling Jack. "Once he leaves for New York, you're not going to be able to find him without calling, like, his parents or something. What are you gonna do, show up at his doorstep with a kid next year? The guy deserves at least a warning."

Juliet remembers that one painful dinner she'd spent at the Shepherds' house. She's not bringing a kid into _that_, is she? "Calling Jack accomplishes nothing."

Her sister rolls her eyes, takes a sip of water. "It would accomplish _warning_ him."

Juliet doesn't respond, just keeps on stacking dishes.

Rachel shreds a paper napkin almost violently. "...You're _not_ planning on telling him, are you? How are you supposed to manage on your own?"

"I'm not going after him for money, Rachel. I'll manage, I'll figure it out."

"I bet that's what everyone now on welfare thought at first, too."

"And I'm sure everyone on welfare appreciates your compassion."

"God, Juliet, what did he do that was so bad?"

"I - nothing. It's, it's not that. It's, I don't understand why I have to drag him into this. It wasn't his choice."

"Well, it was obviously his choice to not use a condom."

Juliet flushes. "He was - it was - we were drunk."

"Sounds like a great bedtime story for the little one. Look, all I'm saying is, they guy has a right to know. And what if you run into him?"

Except UCLA has tens of thousands of students, and the med school is nowhere near most of the buildings she frequents. "It's statistically unlikely."

Rachel slides off the counter, grabs a towel to dry despite the fact that there's a dish rack right there, and they've never bothered to hand-dry anything before. "You realize you're pretty much doing the reverse of what _he_ did, right?"

"Huh?"

"Our... our real father. He didn't even stick around to see you born. And now you're taking that choice _away_ from someone else?"

So then maybe her kid will never have to face that same kind of rejection. It doesn't seem so bad to her, really. All the same, she feels that same old tremor of anxious anger roll up her spine. "You can finish up here on your own, right?"

* * *

Juliet's reading while her sister sleeps in the reclining chair at chemo, and for the first time in ages, she's actually enjoying what she's doing - the reading part, not the sister getting chemo part - even though Billy Bathgate seems to be overly concerned with the theme of free will versus fate, which is a debate that's somehow always managed to irritate her.

Except Linda, one of the nurses, sticks her head into the room. "Sorry to bother you," she whispers, "but that friend of yours is here. The one who used to come with you."

Niall's back? Juliet casts a quick glance at Rachel, still asleep, and rises to her feet, her heart flipping over like a sputtering goldfish. He's standing in the waiting area, a dirty dark green duffle at his feet, looking out the fourth floor window at the tips of the pine trees below.

"Hey," she says softly.

Niall turns around and gives her a gentle smile before his eyes travel down to her middle and a lump forms in her throat. Juliet's wearing kind of a tight T-shirt today (not the kind of thing she even would have worn before, really), figuring it was kid showing and not fat (she hopes), but... is it gross anyway? Is he shocked? Why isn't he saying anything? She touches her stomach. It's been over a month since they've seen each other.

"I, uh..." He breaks out into a grin. "I was wondering if you were gonna be one of those girls who doesn't say anything 'til you gave birth in a public jax. Good to see ya, Jules."

He steps forward and holds out his arms, and Juliet's pretty sure they've never really touched before, it's like they'd set up this Rule of Never Touching on _purpose_, but she steps forward and he wraps his arms around her firmly. She slides her arms up his back, tightening her arms around him.

It feels really, really, really good.

"I shouldn't've left for so long. You OK?" he whispers to her. "Rachel OK?"

"Yeah... yeah."

Everyone's OK, and she's leaving in a week.

* * *

These people will use any excuse to throw a party.

OK, a welcome-back for Niall/going-away for Juliet isn't really that awful of an excuse, but anyway, it's come down to her last night in the house and that's (almost) that. They'd spent most of the past week taking care of Rachel, and Juliet has a nagging guilt she'll miss Rachel's final chemo (at least of this set - and if they're lucky, then maybe forever). But there are just too many people around who keep trying to assure her that Rachel will be fine, and Juliet's almost starting to believe it.

Juliet can't drink, obviously, and Rachel's abstaining for health reasons, but Niall is knocking back plenty of shots with the rest of them. On the couch, Juliet closes her eyes to the roar of this party, Allie's screech of laughter, and Niall and some of the guys reciting some kind of chant, and then Duncan fucking with the stereo and it's David Bowie and Queen, "Under Pressure," and probably nothing makes more sense that that song, right now, tonight.

Juliet keeps wondering what Niall's poem's going to be tonight, her last night, and she selfishly wonders if she'll get one just for her, wonders if that last one was really meant for Rachel. Figures it probably was.

But when Steve finally tunes down the stereo and Allie throws a red plastic cup at Niall, he recites Yeats, "To Ireland in the Coming Times," (_When Time began to rant and rage / The measure of her flying feet / Made Ireland's heart begin to beat; /And Time bade all his candles flare / To light a measure here and there_) and her heart sinks and who even knows.

She was silly for thinking she was special, that there was some kind of code, and her attention span wanders. This time tomorrow she'll be alone (except supposedly her baby is the size of an avocado now) in a single room on The Hill, probably a 14x12 with a linoleum floor, a stale squashy mattress, an overhead light fixture filled with the bodies of dead bugs. None of this boisterous insanity, the hooting and catcalls, these people who aren't too shy to wear ridiculous wigs or paint murals on bathroom walls, these people who spill drinks into the shag carpeting (which is still disgusting) and don't really worry too much about anything, generally.

In other words, she'll be five hundred (a million) miles away tomorrow.

Rachel makes a big show of giving Juliet a box of hippie skirts and a tie-dyed baby onesie as a going-away present, and Juliet isn't sure those skirts would go over big in L.A., but right now she doesn't really care because her face suddenly hurts from smiling, it's the silliest thing. This is the first thing she has for the baby, now, and she thought it would scare her but instead she unfolds the tiny little shirt over the slight swell of her belly and Rachel actually giggles.

For the first time in she's-not-even-sure-how-long, Juliet feels like she belongs somewhere. She gives her sister a squeeze and doesn't really manage to say much beyond, "Thank you."

At midnight Rachel declares Juliet needs to go to bed, and she's sleeping up in Rachel's room tonight to stay away from the rest of the noise of the party. Her bus leaves at eight; her bags are already in the downstairs back hallway, packed. Everyone demands she funnel them baby pictures through Rachel and she promises she'll do what she can.

The party already seems like it's over once she's under the covers alone in Rachel's bed, just receding noise from the past like it's echoing through space, radio waves from decades earlier.

Except there's a knock at the door.

"Come in?"

Niall ducks into the room, leaving the door open a crack. "About the poem," he begins hesitantly.

"OK?"

"I have one for you. I just thought... Maybe it wasn't for everyone." Niall pulls a piece of rumpled paper from his pocket. "I'm, uh, probably not going to go with you and Rachel to the bus tomorrow."

"That's... that's OK."

"You take care of yourself, you hear me? And call that fella of yours. It's really for the best."

_You don't know what's for the best,_ Juliet thinks, reaching for the poem once she realizes that's what the paper is. He's not going to recite it for her. He's never recited from paper.

"Borges," he says, and kisses her forehead. "See ya, Jules." He shuts the door quietly behind him.

Juliet pulls the covers over her head and squeezes out tears she doesn't understand.

* * *

On the bus ride, two hours in - still mentally replaying Rachel's promises that if she's well enough, she'll be in L.A. for Thanksgiving - Juliet unfolds the sheet of paper, warm from the handbag that's been laying in the sun: "You Learn," Jorges Luis Borges.

_After a while you learn the subtle difference _  
_Between holding a hand and chaining a soul, _

_And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning _  
_And company doesn't mean security. _

_And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts_  
_ And presents aren't promises,_

_And you begin to accept your defeats _  
_With your head up and your eyes open _  
_With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,_

_And you learn to build all your roads on today_  
_ Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans_  
_ And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight._

_After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much._  
_So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,_

_Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers._  
_And you learn that you really can endure._

_That you really are strong_  
_And you really do have worth_

_And you learn and learn_

_With every good-bye, you learn._

Juliet presses a fingertip to the pane of the bus window, holds it there, pulls it away to stare at the whorl of the print before it fades away. She thinks of that baby onesie Rachel had given her, and rests her hand on her bag. (At least the baby is going to be one thing that isn't always a good-bye.)

How is she supposed to be a good mother? It doesn't really matter in the end what she wants, right? There's going to be a whole other person in the world; what if she completely screws up that person's life?

It's like that recurring dream Juliet has a lot near the end of every semester, when she realizes she's forgotten to go to class all semester and the final's in an hour.

She presses her face against the window, making wishes she'll never admit out loud, watching the miles vanish.


	21. Who We Were

_"Self-preservation_  
_is a full time occupation._  
_I'm determined_  
_to survive on this shore._  
_You know I don't_  
_avert my eyes anymore."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Talk to Me Now"

* * *

**UCLA, Fall 1990**

_Public Service Announcement to the Undergraduates of University of California, Los Angeles:_

_Pregnancy is not contagious. That means you can interact with pregnant people beyond pitied half-smiles, glances at and then away, and even sit NEXT to them, and you, in fact, will not catch this terrifying condition. _

_Repeat: If you interact with a pregnant person, it does NOT mean that you, too, will have to squeeze out another human being in a few months. _

_Sign here if you understand: __

_(Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)_

* * *

The day Juliet changes her major from biochemistry to plain old biology... Well, Juliet's had better days, is all. She oversleeps (horrible cliche of every bad day ever), comes back in from the rain (see: horrible cliche above) to discover she's missed an extremely rare phone call from Gemma, who's abroad this semester. The loneliness wouldn't be so bad if Gemma were here, considering Gemma had been the one more or less maintaining Juliet's tenuous connection to the other friends she'd so stupidly blown off last year, for Jack.

(It's her own fault, anyway. Too caught up in the magic of someone wanting her, and the way his hands felt in her hair. See, again: stupid horrible cliches.)

Juliet sits there on the edge of her little twin-sized dorm bed, staring at her answering machine, willing Gemma to call back RIGHT NOW, but instead the phone is, of course, silent. She wrings the rain out of her hair, looking up at Allie's old Phish poster she'd swiped from the house in Mountainaire. Juliet doesn't even like Phish, but the weird 1970s-style lettering on the poster is sort of calming. Sort of like home, somehow, which doesn't make sense even in the slightest.

At least her little pitstop back home means she brings an umbrella to the bio department. Hiding her face from everyone she sees? Doesn't sound so bad today, and she's going to blame hormones and mood swings and the weather, everything except for what she has to do.

She just doesn't have the time she'd need to dedicate to Inorganic Chemistry this semester what with her work schedule. And next semester, and the one after that, and the one after _that? _

Juliet had never worked during the school year before, but she'd cut her credits from 16 to 12 and applied for a work-study grant. They'd stuck her at the reference desk in the library, which is painfully frustrating, but it pays $5.15 an hour and she deals with the grumpy, confused students as best she can.

It's not like changing her major is going to keep her from getting into med school, she tells herself over and over all day. Probably half - at least - of med students any given year had been bio majors. But that Md/PhD program she'd been idly contemplating? Medical research? Yeah, that's not going to happen when she needs to finish her education as quickly as possible.

"As quickly as possible"? Ha. Finishing one's education as quickly as possible usually doesn't entail med school, but there's no way she's giving that up all together. And medical research was only a blip on her radar at this point, anyway, and she's sure she'll find something else that piques her interest.

Right?

Right.

So say bye-bye to Inorganic Chem. Say bye-bye to majoring in biochem. And hi to fewer credits and a work study job and who knows how ever many lame jobs until she's got her own white coat and a kindergartener holding her hand._ It'll be worth it, _she reminds herself, squeezing her left hand into a fist and hoping that's all going to be true.

As Juliet signs the forms to change her major, though, a strange little shiver runs up her spine._ This isn't what happened_, she thinks. But of COURSE this isn't what happened, it's what's happening _now_.

_It doesn't matter who we were, it only matters who we are._

That thought doesn't even make any sense.

(What does, though?)

Maybe she's thinking this isn't what's _supposed_ to be happening? Except more and more it all seems to make sense, her loneliness and her work conspiring into one single thing, that she's going to have some kind of family, just the two of them, and maybe Rachel on an odd holiday here and there. And she's doing this for the swell of her middle that's going to become her child. At this point it's hard to believe that a couple of months ago she was telling some doctor she_ couldn't _have a baby, when these days the baby is what's holding her together.

Medical research? It was just something she'd tossed around at one point. Joint MD/PhD? Years and years and _years_ of school. Forget it. She'll find some other specialty when the time is right, and so Juliet thinks of green flickering lights, yellow houses, and signs the forms.

* * *

Astronomy lab (she'd switched in anyway, screw Latin composition), lunch alone, library work, and then she's finally halfway home when she remembers her doctor's appointment. And dammit, it's still raining and she's half-soaked despite the umbrella and she really really needs a fucking car one of these days.

Bus it is. Her 16-week appointment, she'd just gone to the Westwood Planned Parenthood ("planned," great concept there) - too scared to tell her father what might be showing up on his insurance if she'd gone to a private doctor.

God, Juliet had been furious with Rachel when her sister had spilled the beans. Her father had called her out of the blue one night; they hadn't even spoken since Juliet had called him to give him her phone number in her new dorm.

"Your sister says you're pregnant. Is that_ true?_ Why didn't you tell me?" her father had demanded as soon as she'd answered, her knees going weak.

"I thought - I thought - " And whatever newfound strength she'd discovered snarking at the diner assholes seemed to fly right out the window. "I didn't - I was waiting until the time was right." Which was a pointless lie, but it's... sort of embarrassing, after all. _Hey, Dad, you know what? I had a lot of sex and THEN guess what happened?_

"Oh, Julie," he'd finally said, a little mournfully, a little angrily. "You know, I always figured you were gonna be the one who turned out OK."

What the fuck was he implying about Rachel? Something about her health, or the way she lives? Because Juliet was thinking he doesn't know the first thing about Rachel's life, not really. Was Juliet supposed to get into that with him, though? She'd tried to defend her sister to Jack, and... and what? "I'm gonna be _OK_, Dad," she'd said, and there was an edge in her voice, but for the first time she'd actually believed it.

More or less they'd sorted things out, and of course he wanted to know about "the young man" or something horribly awkward, and Juliet reminded him about Jack's existence and ended the conversation as quickly as possible after that.

And they haven't talked since, which isn't all that unusual for them, anyway. He'd always liked Rachel better, she doesn't _care_ what he says. Probably she's OK to use her health insurance now, at least. Of course, if she gets denied or if doesn't go through or however that works (how _does_ all that work? she should probably try to figure that out soon, and Planned Parenthood thought the baby would go on Medi-Cal and Jesus that's depressing, and anyway does her mind ever ever ever stop?), that'll probably be the cherry on top of the Crap Sundae otherwise known as today. But Juliet finds the correct bus, and she's only got a half-hour to be on time, so off she goes.

* * *

...And leaves the umbrella on the bus. Fan-freaking-tastic. The rain's tapered off into a drizzle, and she keeps her head down anyway, and how much does this day suck already? Juliet promises herself after this is all over and she's home and has that goop wiped off her belly, she can have an actual bubble bath in her decrepit but gloriously private bathroom (god, that's been a long time coming) and eat ice cream - not the Crap Sundae kind - and forget about homework for the rest of the day.

Juliet's wrapped up enough in her solitary little fantasy that she practically slams right into someone as she rounds the corner. He must have sharper reflexes than her, though, or at least _he_ was paying attention, because he jumps back, drags his eyes over her. "Watch yourself, mamacita," he smirks at her, running a hand through his hair.

She blinks a couple of times, suddenly thinking again of those forms she'd signed this afternoon, for no real reason at all. "Sorry," she mumbles, starts to move around him.

"Hey. You OK?" He's got his hands half-up, like he wants to touch her but isn't going to. He's probably around her age, dressed grungy in ripped jeans and a button-down over a dark red T-shirt, and he's staring at her, looking a little lost, a little confused, the rain dripping off the ends of his straight blond hair.

"Hey. You usually talk to strangers?" she asks, tilting her head. At that he breaks into a little grin. Dimples. Hmm. Juliet feels a curious little tug in her heart. Then again, it's been ages (i.e., five months) since she's even so much as been _kissed_, much less anything _else_, and now, what? She's just standing here in a drizzle staring at this stranger? Pathetic. He's about to speak, but she cuts him off. "I - have to go. Sorry." This time, Juliet does move around him, and he steps back to let her go, but he swivels with her.

"Well, I'm probably the kind of stranger your mama warned you about, so..." Except he doesn't look like he's halfway to laughing anymore, his eyes moving over her face instead of her body this time.

Juliet wipes the drizzle out of her eyes. Why is she getting scared, why does she feel like she's dangling over an abyss, why does she want to grab his hand, this stranger's hand, and hang on forever? "I really have to go. Sorry."

He nods at her, standing where he is on the corner, and when she's at the opposite corner, she dares herself to look over her shoulder, and he's still standing there in the rain.

* * *

The doctor's office is at the next block, on the second floor of a small, white Spanish-style building. She's ten minutes late, that... that guy with the dimples had made her even later on an already ridiculously strange and annoying day, and the receptionist makes her displeasure clear, considering Juliet's on the schedule as the last appointment of the day, and she's supposed to have an exam _and_ an ultrasound.

She's finally going to get to see the baby, and now that she's here, she's actually starting to get excited. _Screw_ this grumpy receptionist. It was rainy, Juliet had to take the bus, whatever, she's here now, _sorry_, but she's _not_ sorry, she's sick of being sorry all the time for everything ever and it's pointless and so Juliet just meets this woman's gaze like it's of no concern whatsoever.

Eventually the receptionist heaves an enormous sigh, leads her down the hall. "Right in there. The ultrasound tech will see you first and then Dr. Burke will be in."

There's that strange, haunted feeling again. _Test tubes in a refrigerator, sitting on the floor under a counter, a ring thrown into the trash._ Juliet manages a fake-polite smile.


	22. Black and White

**This one goes out to user4815 for leaving review #200! Thank you!**

* * *

_I am growing older_  
_waiting in this line._  
_Some of life's best lessons_  
_are learned at the worst times._

- Ani DiFranco, "Lost Woman Song"

* * *

Dr. Edmund Burke is a short, skinny guy with thinning hair and a prominent Adam's apple. "And you... must be Juliet," he says slowly, looking down at her chart instead of meeting her face, so he doesn't see her nod. "Well," he says, exhaling, still flipping through her paperwork, smirking. Juliet had filled it out herself, so she knows what he's looking at: single, twenty, dorm address, previous records available at two Planned Parenthoods. "Looks like you've gotten yourself into _quite_ a situation here."

A... a _situation?_ Is that what this is? Two or three months ago, she might have agreed with him, but now her blood floods with adrenaline, like she wants off the edge of this crinkling-paper-covered table right fucking _now,_ but she's not going just yet. She is somehow suddenly filled with fury, like he thinks he _knows_ her, but she feels like she knows _him_, and -

Because soon enough she's going to be somebody's mother, and if she can't stand up for herself now, then how's she ever going to stand up for her child?

"Excuse me," she says dryly, waiting for him to look up at her. "You know, my face is up here. I thought they would have taught you in med school that a patient is more than their chart? But I suppose you'd have to have half a brain for to understand that, anyway."

His mouth opens a bit, noiselessly like a goldfish, and Juliet isn't really sure why she'd automatically assumed the worst of him when he looks so damn taken aback. After a moment, though, he closes his mouth, narrows his eyes.

A knock at the door interrupts whatever it is he's not going to say now. "What?" he calls impatiently, the single syllable short and thumping.

"Ed, sorry, can I come in?"

He rolls his eyes, glancing back at Juliet. "Fine."

The woman who opens the door leans in, the same height as him when she's angled into the room, her stick-straight blond hair brushing her shoulder. "Did you grab that patient chart? Juliet's supposed to be with me."

Dr. Burke regards the woman seriously for a moment, and Juliet's not sure if he's pissed off or this other woman is somehow in trouble or what. "Well, considering you're _also_ the one who let Iris go for the day, be my guest." He yanks his stethoscope from around his neck, pushes past the woman in the door. She's taller than him when she straightens up.

This... is awkward. Juliet had just picked this place out of the phone book, really, not knowing what else to do. It was close to the bus line that ran through campus, and... what the hell, if she wanted to see doctors fight she could have stuck with the Shephards.

When the door closes behind him, the woman turns to Juliet and smiles. "Sorry about that. I think my husband woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I'm Dr. Michelle Burke, and you're going to be with me from here on out. As long as we haven't scared you away yet."

Juliet remembers how to nod politely. Michelle Burke seems nice (so far, anyway). Too nice for that skinny little jerk.

They go through the exam, blood pressure, pee test, blood test, pulse, polite chatting, the doctor reminding her a little of that first Planned Parenthood doctor, the one who was so sweet to her back when she was still scared out of her mind. Dr. Burke asks about classes, expressing excitement over the fact that Juliet's pre-med herself.

Doctors always love that she's pre-med.

It's weird to be here and not be freaking out anymore.

"Feeling any kicking yet?"

Juliet shakes her head. "The book said maybe I should have by now."

"Well, those books aren't accurate for everyone, especially when it's your first. And it's not going to feel like kicking at first. More like butterfly wings. Give it another two weeks. And we'll take a peek, see what's going on in there, OK? I sent the ultrasound tech home for the day." Dr. Burke winks conspiratorially at Juliet, who finds herself wondering why this lovely woman is stuck married to a such smug little asshole. Unless he's not always like that? Doubtful, though. Dr. Burke is probably in her early- or mid-thirties and clearly living a better life right now than Juliet, but even so, Juliet finds herself almost pitying her. Why doesn't she just _leave_ him? This woman has to work with him and then go home to him at night_, too? _Ugh.

But why is Juliet really so concerned with the plight of virtual strangers when there are way more important things going on? This isn't a soap opera, here.

Dr. Burke is wheeling the ultrasound machine toward her. "OK. Let's take a look."

Juliet pulls up her shirt for that dollop of cold gel. The last time she'd done this: ten weeks ago, five hundred miles ago, a million lifetimes ago. And this time the screen is angled toward both of them, and a black-and-white swirl has lips, cheeks, a blip of a nose. "Oh..." she whispers, squinting, trying to get closer.

Dr. Burke grins at her. "There it is. There's your baby."

"Oh... Oh, my god."

"Do you see that little flutter? That's the baby's heartbeat."

"Yeah..." Juliet can't stop staring at the screen and she knows she must look ridiculous, practically gaping at the fluttering image in front of her, her eyes wide and unblinking. She probably doesn't _look_ like it, but all the same... The baby is sucking its thumb and she's not quite sure she's ever felt so happy in her entire life.

"Just try to stay still, OK? I'm going to get some measurements."

She's half-aware of what the doctor's doing, measuring the baby's neck, femur, head circumference. It's just - this black-and-white swirl, it's not just a picture on a screen, it's really really really real, and whatever came before really doesn't matter anymore, does it?

Dr. Burke smiles at her. "Perfectly perfect in every way. Do you want to know the sex?"

"You... You can tell?" Which is a stupid question, because the book _said_ ultrasounds can tell at this point, but her brain and her mouth aren't quite working in tandem right now. She wipes at a tear in the corner of her left eye. _THAT was unexpected._

"If I go looking. Do you want me to?"

"OK."

Dr. Burke moves the wand over her belly. "See, right there?"

It all just looks like wavy lines to her, and she shakes her head.

The doctor smiles at her. "Congratulations. You're having a son."

Juliet lets out a shaky breath. Instantly the picture in her head fills out, with an actual baby, an actual little boy with his too-big backpack. Her son _(Andrew? Ryan? Alex?) _on his bike, skidding toward the mailbox, practically giving her a heart attack before he angles out of the way, laughing.

"Thank you," she breathes out.

* * *

On Wednesday morning, she's in the back row in her English lit lecture, paying equal amounts of attention to her professor and the repeating blue checked pattern of the carpet.

But, then. _There_. There it is.

Butterfly wings, just like Dr. Burke said. Pressing her hand to the spot, just to the left of her navel, she realizes it's not anything she can feel from the outside yet. And so up at the front of the room, Wilkerson just keeps going on and on and_ on_ about Ganymede and Rosalind (at least it's not Romeo and Juliet), and in this private little world, the baby is somehow doing some kind of dancing wriggle.

* * *

That night she tucks the ultrasound photos into the frame of the bulletin board over her desk.

* * *

Dr. Burke - the good one - keeps to her word, and Juliet doesn't have to see Dr. Burke - the evil one - at her next appointment.

In late October, she lands a seasonal job at a bakery in Westwood. With only twelve credits and fifteen hours at the library and no social life to speak of, it's not like she can't handle it. Or so she hopes. Only until after the holidays. _(Then... then what?_ she wants to ask herself, anyone, the universe.) Mainly they need someone to take advance orders for pumpkin pies and whatever else, pour coffee into unsturdy Styrofoam cups with curling plastic lids, wrap up in brown paper the fresh breads crusty from the oven. There's a couple of tables in front for people who want to sit and sip their coffee, peel apart croissants on top of their paper napkins.

Pro: There's a tip jar, and people aren't stingy when they see she's pregnant.

Con: A middle school across the street means every day at 3:15, the front is inundated with 12- and 13-year-olds, primarily of the loud and obnoxious sort. So that's not awesome.

Another con: Her back aches at the end of every single shift. _Thanks, baby._

But she's trying to focus on the positives these days, OK? Pro: She gets free bagels for breakfast. So, there's that._ Free food, you know the pregnant girl isn't going to say no to that._

Meanwhile, an invitation to a Halloween party throws her for a loop. It's one of Penny's friends hosting, not even someone Juliet knows very well. She figures it's Penny trying to take pity on her.

"Just fucking go," Rachel groans at her over the phone.

"What am I supposed to dress up as, a watermelon?"

"Magic Eight ball."

"Like that's so much better. So you... um, did you get the tests back yet?"

Rachel heaves a sigh. "Don't freak out."

So of course she's going to, her pulse revving up. "Rachel. What."

"Well... they might want me to go back for a few more rounds. Of... of chemo."

Juliet squeezes her eyes shut, bending forward as best she can with a negative-three-month-old baby in the way, pressing her forehead onto the cool wood of her desk. "Wh... when?"

"Not 'til after the holidays. Nothing's definite yet. Though I might dress up as a pincushion this year, think I've earned it."

"Maybe... maybe after this semester I just should move back to Flag."

"What? No. No, Julie, don't."

Juliet's trying to hide the fact that she's crying now, her face hot in the crook of her elbow. It doesn't exactly work so well. "Rachel, wh... what are-" _Stupid crying. Stupid hormones. Grow up. You're supposed to be strong for HER, not the other way around._

"Please please please don't cry. You cry, I'm going to cry. _Fuck."_

Juliet hears a scuffling at the other end of the line, murmuring. Then another voice. "Jules?"

Her heart turns over in her chest. "Niall."

"Hey there. How are you doing?"

"Fine."

"And the baby boy?"

It's weird talking about The Baby Boy _(Thomas? Samuel? Henry?) _like he's his own independent entity. But there are definitely times when he's awake, or seems to be sleeping, or antsy. It's the weirdest thing pretty much ever in the history of the world, or it would be if she were the first person to ever have this happen. Which she obviously isn't. Thinking about it too hard makes her miss her mother, but that missing, that longing - well, it doesn't hurt like it used to. It will always hurt. But at least she can think about it now without feeling like the universe is about to suck her into a black hole. "He's - he's good," Juliet manages, holding in a sob. "How are you?"

"Classes're kicking my arse. But it's good. Gonna have your sister back in school with me this time next year, you just wait."

"That sounds good."

"You bet. Look, I'm gonna put her back on. You take care of yourself, you hear me?"

"Yeah."

When Rachel gets back on, it's clear from her voice that she's been crying. "Listen, little sister, you stay right where you are, OK? We can't both of us be dropouts. What kind of role model would that make for him?"

"For Niall?" she asks, trying to play along. Play like this doesn't hurt.

"Wiseass."

(Juliet goes to the Halloween party as a Magic Eight Ball. She feels like an absolute lunatic.)

* * *

_Welcome to the third trimester_, the book says. Juliet would prefer it if she were being welcomed to Tahiti, but she'll take what she can get these days. It's the middle of November and the bakery is insanity incarnate while they take orders for Thanksgiving, and it's crystal clear now why Max and Evelyn had hired seasonal help.

She's hastily cleaning up the front tables after the people who obviously are Far Too Fucking Important to clean up after themselves and there's a woman at the counter, which is her counter, because she's the only one on, because this is _supposed_ to be the slow part of the afternoon.

"Hi, sorry to keep you waiting, can I help you?" Juliet remembers to flash a smile across the counter.

And Margo Shephard is standing there with a raised eyebrow. At least she thinks it's Margo Shephard; they'd only met once and even if it _is_ her, that doesn't mean she'll remember Juliet, does it? After a second that seems to stretch into eternity, she frowns, maybe smirks a little. "Juliet?"

What does it say about her that Juliet's first instinct is to lie and give another name? Except that would make her Not Exactly Mensa Material, considering she's wearing a fucking nametag. "Hi, Margo."_ Polite. Polite. Bland. Help her and get her out._

Margo's eyes travel down, though. "Well. Look at you."

"Yeah." Juliet flashes another smile at her, and she knows this one doesn't reach her eyes, but her heart's pounding in her ears and even the baby does a little lurch. "You never know what life brings, do you? What can I get you today?"

Margo won't stop staring her middle, and Juliet is trying to send her mental messages, _Don't worry about it, it's not Jack's, it's not Jack's, you don't know, just move on, come on, please._ Finally Margo clears her throat. "I... I wanted to order for Thanksgiving. We always... order from Evelyn."

Juliet nods, grabs her order pad. "OK, what can I put you down for?"

"It's... well, it's just the four of us, Jack's coming in from New York. And Ray's coming... you know, Jack's... Jack's grandfather."

Juliet nods, trying to look patient but not overly interested. _Please, come on, just tell me. _

"So I thought..." - Margo forces her gaze back up to Juliet's face - "...thought we'd do an apple and two pumpkins. Christian always likes leftovers."

"Did you want the ten- or twelve-inch?" Her cheeks are burning by now.

"Oh, the twelve." Margo definitely looks like she wants to say something. Well, something other than her pie order, anyway, judging from the way her fingers are twisting the strap of her cream-colored Coach bag.

"Pick up the Tuesday or the Wednesday?"

"Wednesday."

Juliet dots her pencil point nervously down the margin of the order form, totals up her order. "Would you like to pay now or when you pick them up?"

Margo's eyes jump. "Now is fine," she says, sorting through her purse.

* * *

If Juliet really wants to hide, she'll quit the bakery at the end of her shift today.

For the rest of the afternoon, taking orders, getting paper cuts on the edges of brown bags, wrestling with the coffeemaker, she tells herself this. Over and over and over _Just quit. At the end of the day, just quit. Just say, too much schoolwork, too tired, just quit. Just QUIT._

She doesn't quit.


	23. Glass

_"In the day to day_  
_and the face to face_  
_I have to act_  
_just as strong as I can_  
_just to preserve a place_  
_where I can be who I am._  
_So if you still know how,_  
_talk to me now."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Talk to Me Now"

* * *

The funny thing is, she should have quit.

Juliet's been having a lot of false contractions lately, being on her feet so much, and Dr. Burke tells her she needs to start slowing down. The thing is, though, she'd promised Max and Evelyn she could make it through the holidays, and this is her last chance to make any more money before the baby.

And that's all it is, really. _(Sure. Sure it is.)_

* * *

Rachel's hair is lighter than it was before the chemo, not quite an inch long. She gives Juliet the kind of smile Juliet's not quite sure she's ever seen from her sister before. "You are _huge," _Rachel announces, dropping her bag and hugging Juliet in the dorm lobby.

"And you're incredibly rude." Juliet hugs her sister back, as tightly as she dares, and Rachel lets out a squawk when the baby jabs at her.

Rachel's eyes widen. "Holy crap, was that-"

"Yeah."

"Can I feel it?"

No one's done this since the Halloween party, which had at one point turned into a groping fest by amused drunk people. That's kind of sad, really _(kind of beyond sad)_, and so Juliet takes her sister's hand, presses Rachel's open palm to the spot.

"Oh my god," her sister declares. "That's insane."

"I know."

"He's pretty strong, huh?"

"Oh, yeah. And he really needs a turkey sandwich with a lot of mustard, _right now."_

In the communal kitchen on the first floor, Rachel orders Juliet to sit down, despite her protests that Rachel must be tired.

"Honestly? I feel like shit. But when's the last time anybody made something for you?"

Juliet's not sure what she's supposed to say. She's used to taking care of herself by now, has been used to it for a long time. Remembers that first night at Jack's, late, eating grilled cheese in his bed. "I don't know," she finally answers.

"Look, I'm not puking my guts out right now, and _you're _not puking your guts out right now, and I think that calls for a celebration."

Rachel rifles through the cabinets. The ingredients came from Juliet's minifridge upstairs, but the pans and utensils live in the dorm. Most of them have seen better days, with the avocado-green handles indicating they're from the '70s, but they're functional. There's this one casserole dish though, white with brown and avocado-green flowers. It's ugly as hell, but that's not what bothers her - it's just... Maybe her mother had had one like it? She can't remember, but it's so familiar and... Well, it doesn't matter. Juliet just hopes no one else here is going to use the kitchen for Thanksgiving too.

"You find out about an apartment yet?" Rachel's going all-out, at least as much as she can for sandwiches. Lettuce and tomato, provolone, turkey, mustard, grilled. Side of broccoli, which doesn't seem at all like something to eat with a sandwich. Juliet's not even sure how long that broccoli was in her freezer in the first place. Maybe from the beginning of the semester when she was feeling a little more optimistic about cooking?

"They're getting me into family housing."

"Yeah?"

"I have to take at least nine credits a semester, but they said I can take Incompletes if I need to." She doesn't what to think about what a semester of Incompletes is going to look like to med schools.

Rachel makes a face, melting butter in the pan. "That kind of sucks."

"I know, but then I don't lose my financial aid, I don't have to worry about furniture, except for baby stuff. And Dad's paying for what the dorm would have cost."

"And the rest?"

"Upped my student loans."

"You're going to be in debt until you die."

"I know. It's just a one-bedroom, for now."

"Fancy."

"Yeah, well, as long as there aren't bong-water stains on the carpet."

Rachel laughs, and Juliet wishes everything could freeze right here, for at least a little while. Longer than the five days her sister's going to be in town, anyway.

* * *

The day before Thanksgiving, Juliet wakes with a jolt. Not another nightmare, at least. Around the start of the school year, she'd started having terrifying dreams: dying on the operating table, bleeding out during, what, a C-section? Or that she couldn't breathe, or she slipped into a coma, or any one of a handful of scenarios that would snap her awake in the pitch black and leave her shaking. For awhile she couldn't lose the feeling that something was going to go horribly wrong, but Dr. Burke had assured her that vivid dreams were common during the second trimester. And sure enough, somewhere around the end of it, they'd stopped.

No, no dreams last night. It's just that... today she'll _know_, one way or another, what she's been trying to pretend she's not been thinking about.

If she'd really been so concerned, she could have just called Jack over the summer. Why does she want this, now? Is it just because it's getting closer? Because she's getting scared about a whole new set of worries? Because the baby_ - Jacob? Daniel? James? - _just seems Extremely Real by now?

The truth: She's getting sick of telling herself lies.

About what she wants, about what she's not not NOT afraid of. (What if he comes in for the order? What if Margo _didn't_ tell him, just sent him off unknowing? What if she _did_ tell him? What if he's furious with her? What if he doesn't want anything to do with her? What if he thinks she'll be a terrible mother? What if...?)

Early-morning light is flickering through the blinds, and the cot they'd wrestled up from the maintenance office is empty, the hospital-white sheets bunched up on a lower corner. Rachel's across the room, sitting in Juliet's desk chair, one leg propped up on the edge of the seat. Her short hair sticking up in the back from where she'd slept on it. A half-empty_ - or is it half-full? oh, jeez - _glass of orange juice is on the desk in front of her. (Juliet's not sure why she keeps bothering to buy it. She's never really liked orange juice.)

Something about the way Rachel's staring intently at those tacked-up ultrasound photos sends a strange little jolt through Juliet. Like this is all wrong, something's just... Juliet doesn't_ know, _she's still blinking sleep out of her eyes, rubbing at her face. She must have had some sort of dream after all, one she'd just missed remembering. Why else would she feel so mixed-up, so confused?

Like everything is all flipped around.

In profile, Rachel bites her lip, leaning closer. Her forehead crimps up, looking. Juliet's not sure she can read the expression on her sister's face.

* * *

Juliet's scheduled for 10 to 4, with the shop not closing until 6, and it's busy, but not busy enough for her to stop Thinking About It. She stays behind the big main counter during her breaks, pretends to read while she eats lunch. (What if he comes after 4?)

Around 3, she realizes she's been glancing at the clock every five minutes. At 3:30, she's fairly certain her calm exterior is about to blow and she's going to start screaming at the next customer who whines even in the slightest about having to wait in line or getting a box with a corner bashed in.

How much _would_ a challah hurt if a customer took one in the face?

Finally she just asks Antonia for the list of preorders. Shephard is checked off. "Thanks," she murmurs to Antonia, but that imaginary ocean from long, long ago is closing over her head again, and nothing feels certain at all.

It scares her how much she'd been counting on Jack showing up.

* * *

On Thanksgiving, she and Rachel make eggplant parmesan because they're both terrified of dealing with a turkey. Supposedly making a turkey involves_ sewing?_ That is so not OK.

Two other girls are in the kitchen putting together an equally un-Thanksgiving-esque meal, and the four of them end up eating together at the wobbly little table in there, and one of them sneaks down a bottle of wine for the three non-pregnant people.

Turns out, Theresa and Laura live on the floor above her. They have a VCR up there, and more wine. Rachel goes down to Juliet's for a carton of ice cream, and the four of them watch "Dirty Dancing." Halfway through "Star Wars," Juliet sneaks out to go to bed.

It's the best Thanksgiving she's had in years.

* * *

A hissed whisper: _"Julia."_

Evelyn is leaning over the industrial stainless-steel double sink behind the front counter, getting as close to the bay window as possible. Juliet's corrected her probably ten times, but Evelyn's hard of hearing and anyway, Juliet had put in her notice, after all.

_Julia_ is quitting because she's huge and her feet are swollen, and she thought she could make it through the holidays, but she can't and that's it. The baby has pretty much taken up residence on his own planet, and she's fairly certain that he's been ordering from room service a little too often.

Evelyn's Queens accent comes out a lot thicker when she's fretting. "This young man, I dunno, c'mere. He's come in four days in a row now, different times of day. And he just walks around for maybe fifteen, twenty minutes. He always buys a cup of coffee, that's it. And then he sits out in his car and drinks it. Takes him an _hour_ to drink it. Antonia doesn't think it's anything, but I don't know."

Juliet doesn't say anything, her feet staying planted where they are. She'd just gotten here for her shift, had come in the back door. She reminds herself to keep breathing. _It's not anything,_ just like Antonia thinks.

Evelyn crosses her arms, still looking out the window. Purses her lips. "I can't cawl the police, he's not bothering anyone. Max'll go nuts if I mention it, you know how he gets. But I don't know, it's not normal. You keep an eye on him if he tries to come back in here, you hear?"

Juliet's not conscious of the decision to step forward. All she knows is that she does. And the entire time she's thinking back to the time when she'd sit in Jack's passenger seat, ankle-deep in Styrofoam coffee cups.

A silver Toyota Camry is parked at the curb, and her voice comes out shaky. "Evelyn, could you give me a few minutes? I think he's here for me."

* * *

Jack's hair is longer. With both hands curved around his coffee cup, he's not looking up as she approaches. The windows are up, and Juliet's not sure what she's supposed to do.

Then, somehow, it's all OK. Familiar. She remembers watching him behind glass, she _knows_ this all, like it happened, like they've been separated before (but then, of course they've been separated; they broke up _months_ ago) and when did she ever watch him behind glass?

Her hand is surprisingly steady as she presses her fingertips to the window.

* * *

**I could really use some reviews tonight. If you're enjoying this story, please let me know! You don't need to have a FFnet account to leave a review. Thank you!**


	24. Figure It Out

**Thank you so much for leaving me so many reviews on the last chapter, especially to those of you who hadn't commented before. I was really feeling down that night, and it cheered me up a lot.**

* * *

_I search your profile _  
_for a translation._  
_I study the conversation like a map_.  
_'Cause I know there is strength_  
_in the differences between us_  
_and I know there is comfort_  
_where we overlap._

- Ani DiFranco, "Overlap"

* * *

For just a moment, Juliet feels as though she's fading away on that sidewalk but then she comes back to herself, her knees locked, feet braced on the concrete and suddenly she feels strong, so strong, about to bang on the window, run a million miles away, slide into the passenger seat, who even knows. During this moment suspended in time, every emotion possible is swirling up around her (what is it she _wants_, really?), a funnel cloud of doubts and familiarity and longing and anger, and maybe or maybe not love, or something like it.

She shifts slightly, tilting her head, and the motion casts a shadow into the car. Jack snaps his head up and away from his coffee, and he sees her. He's looking straight at her face, into her eyes, not at her middle, not at first anyway, and Jack's eyes in this light are hazel. The color she'd always liked best in his eyes, which are full of, what? Relief? Fear? Hope?

(Maybe Jack doesn't know what he wants, either, any more than she does.)

For some reason Juliet had almost expected him to raise his fingertips to the glass, but of course instead he lurches out of the car, coming around the back of it. As he rounds the corner, his eyes move down and she knows what Jack's looking at now, and the baby must sense her anxiety (anxiety, that's what it is) because he rolls over and shoves a foot into whatever vital organ he's decided is his xylophone this week.

Juliet forces her eyes up to meet Jack's face. His mouth is open just a little bit too much, his eyes wide._ Great. _

"My... my mother said she saw you. She said... she said that you were..." Jack trails off, clearly unsure how to proceed.

"I put in her pie order." _One apple, two pumpkins, 12-inch, pick up Wednesday (apparently, before 10 a.m.)._ It's easier to talk about a pie order than everything else they're going to have to face.

Jack blinks several times, his lips pressed tight together, his nostrils flaring slightly. He looks shocked, dazed, scared. _Well, good. _It's not like she hasn't had to deal with all this without him, although it's unfair to resent him for what he didn't know. And Juliet's fairly certain that there were a good couple of weeks when she probably looked pretty fucking dazed, too.

All the same, he takes her by surprise. "Uh... Congratulations."

_Congratulations. _Congratulations? Juliet hadn't actually been aware of the hope (hope, maybe that's what it is) written all over her expression until she feels her face fall.

He's got to be... fucking kidding, right? _Congratulations! _Does he not think the baby is_ his?_ What the hell is he _doing_ here? Shouldn't he be back in New York by now? Thanksgiving was a _week_ ago.

_Congratulations. _Congratulations for WHAT? _Congratulations_ for working two jobs, busting her ass trying to save up money, buying baby clothes at Goodwill, a bassinet, a bouncy seat, and does he have any _idea_ how much money even a stroller is, and what about a babysitter for next semester, when she's going to be juggling three classes, trying to pay her bills from loan funds and the pitifully small amount she's scraped together from crap jobs, and oh, forget about that MCAT practice course now, forget about the MCATS all together in August and, oh yeah, childbirth and recovery and taking care of a_ newborn baby? _

Congratulations because she'd been trying not to bother him with _any_ of this because she hadn't wanted him to be burdened? _Congratulations_ because apparently he doesn't even think the baby is _his? _Congratulations because this was her decision, even if it was a mistake they'd made together, _congratulations_ because oh _yeah_, maybe what it really is... is _anger?_ Congratulations because she was too scared to be alone even though now she realizes just how alone "alone" really is? _Congratulations?_

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, trying to swallow her anger and measure out her courage like J. Alread Prufrock's life in coffee spoons, but she knows by now a glare is overtaking her face and Jack swallows again, looking... afraid now? _Congratulations. Oh, please. _Her jaw is clenched, her eyes narrowed, and her next words come out far more bitter and sarcastic than she would have ever wanted them to. "Yeah, you, too," she snaps.

Jack lefts out a heavy huff, sways a little in place like he wants to step backward. To his credit, he doesn't. He doesn't seem as shocked as she'd feared. "Why didn't you call me?"

(What is it she wants?) "I didn't want to put this on you. It wasn't fair."

"It's not - it's not fair to you either." Jack blinks several times in rapid succession. If he cries or something, she's not sure she'll be able to refrain from smacking him.

"But it was my decision to..." _To keep him_, is what Juliet wants to say, but she finds she can't even speak about the appointment she'd made but didn't go to. Not now. She knows she loves the baby, already, loves something she hasn't even seen except on grainy ultrasound photos. "Why did you come here, Jack?"

"My mom said... said she saw you."

"You already said that. That's not what I asked."

"I... I was supposed to come in for Thanksgiving. My... my flight got cancelled and I couldn't get another one in time. When I called to say I couldn't make it, that's when she told me. She said... well, she wanted to know if... if it was mine. I... I came out here after that."

"So now you know."

"Juliet, I - " Jack's eyes are big and scared and hurt.

"What do you want, Jack?"

"I... I guess I don't get to say now isn't the best time for a baby, huh?" Is he trying to be_ funny?_ "I guess I want to be there for you."

"You _guess?_ Well, shockingly enough, this isn't exactly a good time for me,_ either."_ She feels the dam break. "You know, I thought I was helping you. I thought I was doing the right thing. Rachel tells me I've been playing a martyr. Told me I should tell you. And then, here I am asking _you_ what _you_ want. But no one ever asks what it is that _I_ want. You want to _be there _for me? I'm sorry, when has that _ever_ been the case? You know, a lot of the time I was never sure if you wanted me for me, or if you just needed _someone_ there. Anyone." Once the words are out of her mouth, she realizes she could have been talking about either one of them.

"I came back here because I care, Juliet. I came back here because I was trying to help you."

Something else she's not sure she believes. "I didn't need help! I've been fine for seven months. You came back here for _you!_ At least do me the courtesy of telling me why." There are tears in her eyes. _Shit._

"I came back because I was supposed to."

"Supposed to do what?"

"I don't know yet."

How did this fall apart so badly, so quickly? "Well, you better figure it out. I've got to get back to work."

She's halfway to the front doors when he calls after her. "Wait! How am I supposed to get in touch with you?"

Jack looks surprisingly sad when Juliet turns to face him again, hesitating, weighing her anger with the information she actually does want to give him. He can't keep stalking her at work, right? And he's not just going to disappear forever, now that he knows... right? "Do you have a pen?"

He yanks open the passenger-side door of his car, shuffles through the glove box. She remembers writing down her number on that Styrofoam coffee cup, that very first evening, the night she found him with the flat tire in that steamy L.A. heat. That moment and this one seem so far apart it's like they're in different galaxies. But Jack has a little pad of paper, and she steps forward, writes down her number, gives him a long expressionless stare while she tries to figure out what she's supposed to say. "I'm moving on the 16th. So call me before then. Or that's it." Today's the 4th.

He's just nodding, his eyes boring into hers, and now they're brown and dark and afraid or angry.

* * *

Juliet spends almost two hours on the phone with Rachel that night. She _knows_ she's trying to tie up the line on purpose, so she doesn't have to wonder if he's going to call her. Not tonight. She just can't.

She spends the night of the 5th working, comes home to two hang-ups on her answering machine. Maybe he _is_ trying. Maybe. Even so, when the phone rings the following night, her mouth goes dry. "Hello?"

"Hey. It's... it's Jack."

_Obviously._ "Hi."

"Listen, I'm... I'm really sorry about the other day. I shouldn't have just shown up there like that. And I'm sorry I... I'm sorry I acted like that. I was just..."

She twists the phone cord around her fingers. "Yeah."

"It was just, I was surprised."

"OK."

"I'd like to... Could I come see you?"

"You're still in L.A.?"

"I... I'm having someone send my stuff from New York. I'll make up the rest of the rotation some other time. Find some way to do it here."

Is he serious? "Jack..."

"It's not right, Juliet. For me to just..." There's a pause. "I'm going to stay here. That's what's important now."

Her stomach turns over, and she's suddenly afraid, more afraid than when she'd thought maybe he _wouldn't _call. "You don't have to - "

"I want to. Can I come see you? Some time when it's good for you?"

Juliet doesn't think she can deal with waiting. Expecting him. Wondering what to do with her hair or some ridiculous thing like that. Better to just get it over with. "You want to come now?"

"Now?" He sounds uncertain.

What is she even thinking? "Sure. Dykstra, 208."

"I'll be there in 20 minutes."

* * *

They sit in the lounge downstairs. There's no space in her room, they'd have to sit on the bed, or rather, _one_ of them on the bed and the other in her desk chair, and the whole thing would just end up awkward beyond words.

Instead they sit on opposite couches, scratchy blue upholstery on the backs of her calves. A clunky, scratched coffee table between them. She waits for him to speak first.

"I just... I'm sorry again, Juliet. I'm sorry for the other day, and I'm sorry you had to go through all that on your own."

She nods, unable to meet his eyes. Maybe it's the hormones, but she feels a little bit like crying, all of a sudden. Looks down at her hands, her hair falling in front of her face.

"I'd like to... be involved, somehow, if you'll let me. What... what is it that _you_ want?"

So he's asking, because he knows she _wanted_ him to ask. Juliet doesn't look up. Not yet. "I want to be a good mother. And I want to be a good doctor, one day."

"What about me?"

She knows he doesn't mean for it to sound self-centered. Drags her eyes up to his face. "If you do this - if you're involved... That means you don't get to do this partway, OK? I know what it's like to grow up with a father who's not all that interested. And I know what it's like to grow up not ever seeing my _real_ father. Or - or my biological father. Or whatever. I never even met him. But it was harder to be ignored by the one who was there. I'd rather you're not there at _all_, than to be around sometimes but not really care."

The entire time, he's nodding at her. "I told you, Juliet, that's why I'm not going back to New York. We're going to make it work. However... however that happens. I'll help support the baby. I'll be there."

"I don't want you to resent me, or the baby, because you get behind on your rotations."

Jack shakes his head, determined. "You know, my dad, he always put his work in front of his family. I don't want to be like that. I'm not going to be."

And, _there. _There's the Jack she'd known, the determined one. The ways things are just always so... _decided_, for him. He just decides something's going to be a certain way, and then he makes sure, as best as he can, that it's _going_ to be.

Except Juliet knows it's not that easy. Decisions aren't easy (and she remembers all too well, that shaking sleep-deprived morning Rachel was admitted to the hospital, the day before Juliet's scheduled appointment). And sometimes there just aren't any decisions _left_ to make anymore. And God knows, she doesn't just... get to decide how her life is going to be. Although she's working on that, she supposes, these days.

"OK."

"When's it due?"

"He."

"What?"

"He. It's a boy, Jack. February 5th."

"It's a boy?"

Juliet nods; Jack looks floored. Maybe this just became a whole hell of a lot more real for him, at least judging from the way his eyes get too bright all of a sudden.

"We're having a boy," he gets out.

_We_. Just like that, it's back. Juliet wants to say, _No, I'M having a boy_, because the truth is that she doesn't trust him just yet. And anyway, Juliet's still not sure _what_ she wants when it comes to Jack, not really, not if she's going to be really honest with herself. She's not sure if she can _handle_ having him around for this. "Jack..."

Suddenly he's almost reading her mind, the way his eyes catch hers. "Do you - I mean, do you... do you _want_ me around?"

It's going to be harder, in its own way, thinking about a third person in the equation. Trying to learn to depend on someone. She's not sure if she likes that at all. She's not sure if she can do that. "I'm not going to hold your hand for this. I'm... I have enough to worry about right now. If you say you're going to be involved, I'm going to try to trust you. But me, I'm just trying to take things one day at a time."

"Are you feeling OK? Has everything been... I mean, are you all right?"

She nods. "Just tired, these days. Swollen feet. A lot of false contractions."

Jack frowns. "February 5th - how many weeks are you? Should you still be working?"

"Thirty-one. My last day at the bakery is Monday. I have a work-study job at the library, too, but I can sit there."

The questions are coming out all at once, now. "Are you OK until - do you need things for the baby? We can go shopping, if...? Do you have health ins... do you have a car? And you're moving, right? You can't stay here, can you? Where are you going?"

_TOO MANY QUESTIONS! _She's tempted to clamp a hand over his mouth, decides to just answer the last one for now unless he goes nuts or starts crying or something. "Family housing."

"You need help?"

"Are you offering to help me move?" she asks dryly, trying to imagine Jack wheeling her stuff down the hill, hanging onto one of those those stupid, giant gray Rubbermaid carts. His fingers hanging on tightly, desperately, so it won't slip away and go careening down the hill. Yes, come to think of it, that is _exactly_ the kind of thing she can imagine Jack doing.

"If you need help, I'm offering it. So, yeah."

"...OK," she says slowly.

"Can I, um... when's your next doctor's appointment? Can I come?"

"Can we just... stick to the little things for now?"

Juliet can tell he's disappointed by the way his cheeks puff out slightly, the way he looks down briefly before focusing on her again. But she can't do this, can't have him so involved, so quickly. And she _does_ need help moving. Is that too selfish of her? Juliet wasn't lying when she'd told Jack that he can be in the baby's life. But does that mean she has to give him an all-access pass to _hers?_

Jack recovers quickly. She appreciates that he's _trying_, here. "Just the little things, then."

"Thank you." It sounds softer than she'd intended. And more grateful than she'd expected.


	25. Thank You

_I sing sometimes like my life is at stake_  
_'cause you're only as loud as the noises you make._  
_And I'm learning to laugh as hard as I can listen._

- Ani DiFranco, "My I.Q."

* * *

Juliet's dragging today. Her back hurts, her hips ache, she's exhausted, and her astronomy final was this morning, so of _course_ she was up way too late last night studying for that. Next final's tomorrow and then two more on Wednesday, annnd two papers before she's done.

Sleep. Sleep would be amazing. Sleep would be the best fucking thing to ever happen to her in her entire life. But is she sleeping right now? Nope. Why not? Because there are rows of Styrofoam coffee cups to be stacked, spilled sugar to be wiped up, muffins to be boxed, and a whooping pack of middle school boys at the tables to be gamely ignored.

Most of the other employees boot them out after they sit around for too long after buying not much more than a soda, maybe a muffin, but Juliet's working alone in the front right now, and she's always felt sort of bad for them. Sure, they're doofy and annoying, but it's also not their fault that they're 12 or 13 and no one wants them around because of it. Maybe someday someone will try to boot _her_ son out of someplace just because he's young, and that doesn't seem all that fair, either.

This is her last day on the job. She can do it. She _can_. Just three more hours. But no one else is around, and Juliet doesn't try to hide her yawns.

She's dumping coffee grounds into the machine when Danielle shuffles out of the back. "Juliet, I have to go - Alex is sick." The poor woman is wringing her hands anxiously. "You will be all right here?"

Juliet straightens up. "That's fine, is there anything I need to do?"

"There is a timer on the bread, just take it out. It should be ready in half an hour. I don't know if I can come back. Can you, can you call Evelyn?"

"Sure. I hope your daughter feels better."

Danielle nods, her fingers tight around her bag. Juliet watches her go. She's doesn't know Danielle very well, doesn't know what the deal is with Danielle's daughter's father. Probably just a preview of single motherhood for Juliet, anyway, unless she's actually supposed to trust Jack. _(Is_ she actually supposed to trust Jack? Oh, forget it, she's too tired to think about this today.)

On the phone, Evelyn tells Juliet that someone - _someone_, she just doesn't know who (story of Juliet's life) - will be in as backup as soon as possible.

The next half-hour is slow, a few customers and mostly just for coffee. The kids are lingering, loud as usual, flipping through some sort of card collection. But when Juliet hears the timer go off, no mysterious coworker has shown up yet (of fucking course. Also see: story of Juliet's life), so she casts a wary glance at the kids before heading into the back.

The entire room smells like rosemary and olive oil and bread, and _mmm_, but it takes her a minute to figure out where the oven mitts are before easing the trays onto the big stainless steel table in the middle of the room. She's burned her hands one too many times on these things as it is.

The last tray's on the table when things out front go quiet.

Too quiet.

Juliet pauses, tilting her head, trying to listen out front, and all she knows is that she has a bad feeling about the entire thing. She pulls off the oven mitts as she pushes through the double doors, and one of the kids pauses, his jaw dropping as his eyes go big. Of _course_, because he's at the counter, holding the plastic tip jar, and he startles, jerking his head toward his friends.

_"Hey!" _she yells, but just like that, the kids start running, and the ones by the table are out the door in a flash, that last one with the tip jar not far behind them. She takes off after them, as best she can, anyway, considering she's 32 weeks pregnant, and this entire thing is _ridiculous_, but she let those jerks stick around when anyone _else_ would have booted them out after 15 minutes, and this is her last _day_ and she needs those tips, and... _FUCK!_

Outside they're already on their bikes, except for one who grabs a skateboard, throwing it down on the other side of the curb and jumping on. But either he's not exactly a proficient skateboarder - or isn't thinking about what the hell he's doing when there's a yelling pregnant girl running after them bitching about petty larceny - because the board slips straight out in front of him and he faceplants squarely onto the asphalt.

The boy - an Asian kid with spiky hair, black shirt - yelps loudly, laying there on the street, and Juliet stands there for a second watching her tips get pedaled down the street by the Criminals of Tomorrow. Can this day get any better? Finally she kneels down next to the bad skateboarder.

Her voice comes out angry. "What the hell did you and your little friends think you were doing?"

"I don't - I didn't - " he stammers, sitting up.

"You think it's _OK_ to just steal people's stuff?" Juliet yells. "_What the hell is wrong with you?_ You never thought that maybe people _need_ the money they make?"

"It was my friend's - "

"Yeah, and look how well _that_ worked out for you!" She flings a hand out toward the empty road. "They're _gone_, they don't care about what happens to _you!_ You're gonna end up in jail if you keep hanging around with people like that!"

The kid's chin trembles and he bursts into tears. That's when Juliet realizes the trembling chin in question is actually bleeding, and his jeans are ripped, too, revealing a torn-up knee. Well, shit. Juliet... just made a kid cry. She's going to be an absolutely terrible mother, isn't she? "Oh, god. Um... Um... W-why don't you come inside?"

Through his tears, the kid gives her an incredulous look, embarrassed though he may be. His eyes flick back over to his skateboard. "I..." he begins, and then hiccups, a shuddering sob rolling through him that he doesn't quite manage to suppress. Juliet glances back toward the curb. No one else is showing up right now. Not any bakery employees, not any of this kid's friends.

She picks up his skateboard. "Just come on, let's go inside. I'm not gonna yell at you anymore, and I'm pretty sure we have band-aids in there. And now I've got your skateboard, and you're probably going to want it back."

The kid looks simultaneously embarrassed and terrified. It's strange to think he's really only a few years younger than her, especially considering how inadvertently old she's been feeling lately.

"I'm Juliet," she tries.

"J... Jim," he says, his mouth twitching nervously.

_Sure. Sure, it is. _"And what's your real name, Jim?"

He narrows his eyes, which proves to be a mistake because they're still half-full of tears, and he's forced to blink. "Miles," he mutters.

This time she believes him, because no one is going to think of a fake name like Miles. "Come on, Miles."

Miles hesitates for a second, but she's still got his skateboard, so he stands and follows her inside, down the back hall to the bathroom. She sorts through the stuff in the tall metal cabinet behind the door, finds a bunch of bandages from the last time she burned her hand. "Let me see," she instructs.

The entire time, he looks like he's going against his better judgment, but she cleans his scrapes with antiseptic, looks for errant gravel, dabs his wounds with Neosporin. Bandages him up.

He finally speaks. "Are you going to call the police?"

For some reason in her head, there he is, grown up, cleaning rifles, staring at security monitors. God, she's tired today. "Do you think you can convince your friend to bring the money back?"

He shrugs. "Probably not."

"Would you try? Except..." _Shit._ Why is she trying to bargain like this with a kid? And it's her last day anyway. Juliet lets out a long, frustrated sigh. "Listen, it's my last day here. Just forget it."

He eyes her stomach warily. "OK."

"That was a really lousy thing your friend did. I'm serious, you shouldn't hang around people like that."

"I know. But you're... really not gonna call the cops?"

She hesitates. "Well, maybe I should call your parents." This is weird, this is too weird, trying to discipline him, tell him what's good or bad for him, like she's an adult, like she's in charge.

Miles parts his lips to argue with her, lets out a shaky sigh when he realizes she's got him in a no-win situation. "I swear, I swear I won't hang around with them anymore."

She watches him for a long moment, the way he's breathing too fast, the way his eyes are wide, his face still tear-stained. "Don't forget your skateboard," she finally says. "I'm telling my boss what happened. Don't come back here if you don't want to get in any more trouble. And find some better friends."

"OK," he says anxiously. Juliet twists away slightly, to give him room to leave, but once Miles stands, he suddenly pauses, looks up at her. "Thanks. Thanks a lot. Good luck with... good luck with your baby and stuff."

Why does she want to laugh all of a sudden? She made a kid cry today, she'll probably be a terrible mother, but looking at that band-aid on his chin, well, at least she can deal with scrapes. "Thanks, Miles."

* * *

On Sunday morning, Jack shows up at her dorm with a U-Haul, and Juliet can't help but laugh. He looks confused, rubbing a hand over the back of his head. "I thought I was helping you move."

"You are, it's just..." She shakes her head. She's not sure why she'd forgotten how big Jack is on grand gestures, considering he flew across the country just to talk to her, and quit his rotations at Columbia just to prove a damn point. But here he is with a 10-foot rental truck idling at the curb, and up in her room, she's got eight boxes, a small TV, her stereo and three suitcases. OK, and the bassinet and the bouncy seat. And maybe it was silly to buy those before she moved, but they were at Goodwill and there was no guarantee they were going to still be there afterward, and anyway, she needed some things for the baby. As in, she _needed_ to have things, to cement the whole thing in her mind. Not matter what a huge idiot she'd felt like, lugging that stuff into her dorm room. Relieved no one actually saw her that day.

"Jack, I don't have that much stuff." It would have been only two carloads, probably.

"So it'll go quick then." Jack shrugs, his eyes round and uncomprehending.

Juliet shakes her head, still smiling. "Thanks, I guess. Come on."

Jack chuckles once they're up in her room. Her stuff is grouped together in the middle of the tiny room, her bed already stripped down, the shelves empty. "I see your point."

She'd taken down the ultrasound pictures, but they're lying on her desk still, the edges slightly curled. "Um..." Suddenly her heart is thrumming in her chest, and she's not sure why she's so anxious to show them to him, it's not like he doesn't know, obviously, but... it's just that these pictures, that day she got them, it just felt like everything had changed for her that day, that day she'd changed her major, bumped into that stranger in the rain, went to Dr. Burke's (and Dr. Burke's) office, saw the baby for the first time. Found out he was a boy. The whole thing, it was more than she could even explain. "I, um... I thought maybe you'd like to see these."

Juliet holds the pictures out to Jack, and his eyebrows shoot up, his mouth dropping open a little as he takes them from her. "This is...?"

"Yeah."

"This is our baby," he says in wonderment, his eyes getting too bright and then, _there,_ he's tearing up, but for once she can't blame him. Even if the _our baby_ thing still doesn't hit her in quite the right way. Not the way it should. It still feels like he's usurping this from her, like he couldn't possibly understand, but then it's not _Jack_ who's been lugging around this tiny being for just about eight months now, it's not Jack who's been worrying and planning for months, it's not Jack who gets kept up late at night by the baby trying to run a marathon in place.

"Yeah," Juliet says again, softer this time. Trying to sound like she understands him, like she's willing to share this with him. Which... well, she's still not sure that she is.

"Is it... is he sucking his thumb in this one?"

Juliet steps forward, almost closer to Jack than she's comfortable with at this point. Squints at the printout, even though she knows exactly which one he's talking about. "Mm-hm."

Jack rubs his hand over his forehead like he can't believe it, then looks back at Juliet, looks right into her eyes. "This is the..." He blinks a couple of times. "This is the... most amazing thing I've ever seen."

And it is for her, too, even months later. But why does she want him to stop looking at her _right now?_ Like she's just exposed too much, shared too much, given something she wasn't ready for. She shifts where she stands, averting her gaze. Her pulse feels uneven. "I... I know, Jack. Do you think we could just get started? I don't think it's going to take that long. I just - I just thought you should see."

He looks down at the pictures again for a long moment. "Thank you," he says finally. "Thank you."


	26. What Hasn't?

_I was bored,_  
_you were bored,_  
_it was a meeting of the minds._  
_Now it's three in the afternoon and I can't leave too soon_  
_saying thank you, I had a nice time._

- Ani DiFranco, "Cradle and All"

* * *

The lobby bulletin boards of her new building are jammed with ads for marriage counseling and secondhand baby gear. Her apartment itself is small but sunny enough, a tiny bedroom and a combination living room/kitchen/dining area on the top floor of a wide, four-story building. The bathroom is hardly big enough to turn around in. The bedroom is cramped but sunny. The furniture's clearly seen better days.

_(What hasn't?)_

Obviously the move takes next to no time at all, and once Juliet's neatly labeled boxes are in their proper generalized locations, Jack pauses, glancing at the bassinet Juliet had wheeled in and left just inside the front door before he grabs it and brings it into the bedroom.

Juliet stands there awkwardly for a moment, watching him and not knowing what else to do; this whole thing feels just about as strangely foreign to her as pretty much everything else that's happened to her since the afternoon Jack was waiting for her outside the mentor meeting, waiting to tell her he'd ended things with Harper.

Which more or less seems like it was somewhere around two hundred thousand years ago, give or take a day.

Finally she peels off the packing tape on the box nearest to her, hesitating as Jack comes back out, dusting off his hands on the sides of his jeans. "You need some help unpacking?"

"Thanks, but... I'm fine." Except she tries to imagine the moment after the door clicks behind him, leaving her alone in this suddenly-too-big apartment, alone in an unfamiliar area of campus, in a building full of strangers (students, but adult ones, or is that what she is now, too?), wondering if it's too soon to call Theresa and Laura, the friends Rachel had made for her on Thanksgiving. Pretty much Juliet's only friends, at this point. And she doesn't want to stay here, not right now. And she needs sheets. "Do you think... could you just drop me off at Westwood and Mass on your way home?"

He looks confused.

"I need to go shopping," she explains. "I don't have sheets for a double bed because I didn't feel like buying them just to move them here."

Jack's eyes dart to the bouncy seat resting on the battered coffee table, and is this just getting more awkward; does she have to explain _all_ of this somehow? Or does she not need to explain herself at all? "Goodwill," she finally says. "I wanted to get it while... while it was still there." She feels like admitting to shopping at Goodwill is losing a completely imaginary battle of wills.

Sure enough, Jack's forehead creases a little, but seriously, what does he expect? So she stands her ground, just watching him.

"If I just drop you off, how are you getting back here?"

She can't prevent the eyebrow arch. "The bus?" Same as always? Is that really so hard for him to understand?

Except he's shaking his head. "I can go with you, take you back after."

"Jack..."

"Why wouldn't I? I don't have anything to do. My subletter doesn't move out until next week anyway, you know." (She doesn't. Didn't.) He shrugs. "I'm staying with my parents right now, and..." He shrugs again, fishes his keys from his pocket. "Let's go."

* * *

It feels strange perusing the aisles with Jack trailing behind her like a puppy, and she makes her decisions quickly, two sets of sheets, a comforter, an extra set of pillows. Her dad had sent her a bunch of money for Christmas already, and although she doesn't pick anything expensive, she chooses what she likes, light gray and pale green just like her old twin-sized ones, a light blue comforter swirled with tiny white flowers on one side, plain on the other.

Jack insists on pushing the shopping cart, and then at the checkout, when she tries to pay, he whips out his wallet instead, hands the cashier a credit card. "Jack," she hisses.

He looks over at her with round eyes. "Just let me."

She's shaking her head. "You don't have to - " God, this is so awkward, why did she even ask him for a ride in the first place; she should know by now that he has to take everything one step, two steps further than she ever wants. "I _have_ - "

"I know. Just let me. Please, Juliet."

The cashier is still holding his credit card, her head bouncing between them. Juliet flushes and nods at her, and the card is run and that's that.

* * *

Juliet sinks into the seat of Jack's car somehow frustrated by the entire thing instead of exactly grateful. Even so... "Thank you," she says as he starts up the ignition.

"I want to help you," he says for what's probably the fiftieth time since he first decided that stalking her outside the bakery was a viable option.

"I know you do, Jack. But... can you please promise me, that if I ask you for help again, you can just take it at face value? You don't need to go so far beyond what I ask you for."

He runs a hand over the back of his neck before returning it to the steering wheel. "It's just... I get the feeling that you're going to do whatever you can to avoid asking me for help at all. So I just want to do what I can, when I can."

It's really really really hard to argue with that, and Juliet can't help but wonder when, exactly, Jack started to actually _know_ her. "OK," she finally says.

They lapse into silence for awhile until they're at some too-long red light, and Juliet realizes she doesn't know anything about his life now or in the intervening months, not really. "How was New York?" she asks before she realizes she's going to.

Jack seems to consider the question seriously for a moment. "Cold. Noisy. I... I liked the surgery rotation. A lot more than I thought I would." The light changes, and he steps on the gas.

This intrigues her, a million questions springing to her mind, and far too many involve his father. And yet "Really?" is all she comes up with.

"It's fascinating. It's like a puzzle. And that you can just take these pieces and... and _fix_ someone." He shakes his head. Jack starts talking about one of the patients, a young girl who'd been paralyzed in a car accident, a series of spinal surgeries, how she's now on the verge of walking again. "I don't know. I guess, I guess I could see why my father wanted to do it."

Juliet nods, not really knowing what to say about that. It must be nice to feel like you could fix something.

"How's, uh..." Jack looks equally unsure all of a sudden. "How's your sister?"

"She's... We're closer now."

He puts his foot on the brake lightly, for no reason at all. "And you don't want to talk about her health?"

Her heart constricts, just a little. "If I don't want to talk about it, then why are you asking again?"

"I'm sorry." Jack finds a parking spot, turns to her, keeping his left hand on the wheel. "You know... you're different now."

She sort of knows what he means, and she sort of doesn't. Or just wants to know what he thinks of her. Which is probably a very slippery slope. Because it shouldn't matter at all. "Different how?"

His eyes move over her face, and she lifts her chin like she's being judged, like he can see inside her, which he can't, he never could, he couldn't possibly.

"You're..." Jack presses his lips together, his gaze sliding down for a second before he raises his eyes to her again. "You're tougher. You stand up for yourself."

Is that all? "Who else is going to if I don't?"

Jack blinks a couple of times, surprised. Looks sad. Like maybe he's thinking he should fucking stand up to his father once in awhile, probably for what little good it would do, anyway. Or maybe just sad that he's not going to be able to control her anymore. Ugh. "Good point. Kind of sad, though. If you think about it."

"Jack, pretty much anything in our lives right now can be construed as 'kind of sad'." She unfastens her seatbelt. Turns to open the door, her fingers pausing on the door handle.

Here it comes. This is insanely embarrassing, but with her center of gravity being what it is these days, she can barely get out of the passenger seat. Which, it turns out, is way too low. At the store he'd gotten out just around the same time as her, so maybe he hadn't noticed? But with what she'd just said, she'd kind of been banking on a quick exit.

So Juliet hesitates, not wanting him to witness the awkward way she's going to have to angle to get out of the car, and god, this is fucking embarrassing, but then she remembers. Remembers that first day she'd met Jack, agonizing over whether it was OK that she hadn't written her last name on her stick-on Hello My Name Is sticker. Whether he'd noticed that her purse zipper was jammed. Too shy to correct him that she'd actually lived in Portland, Maine until she was nine.

And it's true, she's different, she doesn't obsess over little things anymore, there's no point to it, not when there's this entire universe of Actual Real Shit to deal with.

Instead Juliet looks over her shoulder at Jack, offers him a little sarcastic smile, a shrug, before she opens the door and struggles to her feet. Jack meets her at the trunk, chuckling a little, and Juliet feels like she should be angry with him, reacting like this (but he's not really laughing, not really, and yet every interaction, every moment between them still needs to be analyzed down to the cellular level for some reason). Those pointy eyeteeth of his are showing, she hasn't seen them, or noticed them, anyway, in she doesn't even know how long.

And it turns out his smile is contagious. Dammit.

* * *

In the elevator Jack asked her if she's thought about names yet.

"Well... yes, of course I have."

"And?"

"I don't know. It's hard. How am I supposed to know what suits him if I've never even seen him? Or what if he hates it?"

"He won't." Jack sounds so confident still, and this is the kind of thing that could drive her crazy if she lets it. "What are you thinking about?"

"Matthew. Or James, or David. I don't know." The elevator dings at her floor. Jack's letting her carry the pillows and nothing else. "I don't want anything too... too trendy. Something simple. But then the middle names never sound right."

"Everyone's supposed to hate their middle names, right?"

"I think that's the way it goes. I hate mine."

"That's why you'd never tell me what it was." Jack grins.

"I wouldn't?" It's really not that big of a deal, she thinks as she rummages through her handbag for the keys to her apartment.

"No. That's why I wouldn't tell you mine."

Oh, right. Juliet remembers now, one of the few recurring jokes between them. But she's tired, and she's not into quasi-flirting with the father of her child. Smiles are just smiles, that's it, and she opens the door. "Louisa."

"Gabriel."

Juliet can't quite stop the smirk. "Thanks for your help today, Gabe."

Jack laughs, leaves the bags by the door. Doesn't try to invite himself in, just nods and moves back toward the threshold. "I like David," he says before he goes.

* * *

Juliet unpacks alone, doesn't mind the silence anymore. She cleans the bathroom, sweeps the parquet floors, makes up her bed with the new sheets and comforter even though she should probably wash them first. The bassinet is at the foot of her bed.

In the kitchen she attaches the ultrasound pictures to the fridge with the magnets left behind by a previous occupant, little colorful alphabet number magnets for a child to play with.

She looks at them for a long time, then slides them around to spell the first thing that comes to mind. _DAVID_, she creates.


	27. Hot Chocolate in LA

_"What doesn't bend breaks."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Buildings and Bridges"

* * *

**Winter, 1990-91**

Juliet's curled on her side in the double bed she hasn't quite gotten used to yet. She pushes down again on the spot where the baby seems to be focusing his attention, and there it is again, he jabs back, right at her hand, and it feels like the sweetest absolution for everything in her life so far.

It takes a minute to realize the sound in the room is her own laughter bubbling out of her, and the baby starts kicking harder. Juliet presses her hand down again, a couple inches below where she'd been poking at him before, and sure enough, he slides his hand (foot?) down and punches (kicks?) again.

Late morning, and she's not sure she's gotten all that much accomplished today, but she figures the past few days of unpacking and cleaning and even a little bit of shopping can absolve her for now. And it's not like she's got any pressing engagements - the library told her she's welcome back next semester, but there's not enough work during break. Theresa and Laura have left for the holidays, and Juliet has been half-wondering if she should call Penny, but it's been a couple months at this point and...

Anyway, the point of all this isn't to fixate on being lonely; in a way, being lonely had gotten her into this entire situation (_situation_, wasn't that what Edmund Burke had called it before she'd chewed him out?). But it doesn't matter; "situation" or not, she's here and the baby is here and she's trying to not think about too much beyond that, because she's smiling hard enough that it's hard to feel sad at the moment.

An idea pops into her head, and she struggles out of bed and into the living room. Practically waddling, and she's still got seven weeks to go.

Her stereo's in the corner, and she plugs it in, locates the headphones from her Walkman and, rolling her eyes just a little because of how ridiculous this suddenly seems, she digs out the Brian Eno tape she bartered Steve (Scott?) for. Hits play, presses the headphones to both sides of her belly.

The baby is utterly still for a few seconds and then begins moving around like crazy, Juliet wincing as what's obviously a foot hooks into her ribs. After a moment, though, the ache fades and she just stands there in her living room, laughing as he dances.

"David?" she tries, and he keeps on wriggling, and it sounds about right. "David," she repeats, softer, more assured.

David.

Of course the moment expires when the phone rings, but there's still a smile in her voice when she picks up. "Hello?"

"Hey. It's Jack," Jack says unnecessarily. _Of course it is._

The smile is still on her face, she can't help it. "Hey."

"I just... I just thought I'd call to see how you're doing."

She rubs her belly. "I'm fine, but someone's been punching me a lot this morning. And I think he likes music."

"You're kidding." He sounds a little bit awed.

"I just put headphones on my stomach and he went crazy."

"That's amazing."

It's funny though, with Jack saying it out loud, it suddenly feels less amazing, and Juliet is somehow coming down from that high again. "Yeah."

"Listen, I wanted to see, um, what you were doing for Christmas."

A nervous tremor runs up her spine. The truth is, Rachel hasn't been feeling too well lately, and none of her subsequent test results have looked promising. So a second series of goddamn chemo treatments is slated to begin in the middle of February, and the whole thing is scaring Juliet out of her mind. And if she's allowed to be selfish for just one fucking moment, she's not just scared for Rachel. She's also scared Rachel won't be able to come for the baby's birth, and Juliet's not sure what she's supposed to do otherwise. Unless it means hopping a bus and shifting in an uncomfortable seat for eight hours so Juliet can have her baby in Arizona without her own doctor, which doesn't sound at all like a good idea.

(And of course, the obvious alternative is on the other end of the phone, but she doesn't even know how to wrap her own mind around that, much less try to bring it up to Jack.)

As for the matter at hand, Rachel's visit for Christmas is anything but likely at this point; it's already the 21st. Juliet isn't supposed to fly anymore, so that pretty much cuts out Arizona, or Key West, for that matter. "I'm not sure yet," she hedges.

"My parents wanted to invite you to Christmas, if you don't have other plans."

"Your parents?"

"Well. And me too. I mean - you know you're..." Jack trails off, then tries again. "You're more than welcome to..."

Juliet finds herself wondering what exactly Jack's parents must think of this entire situation. Her mind travels back to Margo at the bakery; she had looked sort of amused at first, and then seemed to grow gradually more shell-shocked as the possibilities had clearly settled into her mind. This must be driving them _insane_ though, their structured lives in their big house and no one talking out anything, just ignoring or exploding, from what she can tell. Although, granted, she doesn't know a whole hell of a lot about it, and although she's curious what they think, she's almost afraid to ask.

Jack seems to read her mind, though. "They just want what's best for... for you and the baby."

Sounds like a good, politically correct line, but she wants to believe it. Like telling yourself you believe in God even if you don't, just reminding yourself over and over what you wish you _could_ believe. "Can I let you know?"

"That's fine. I can pick you up, of course. And bring you back. We have some relatives coming in from out of town, too, so it's not just going to be you and me and my parents. And my grandfather will be there. He's a good guy. If that changes your mind at all." She can detect what sounds like warmth in Jack's voice, or at least warmth over the hesitance. "Should be sort of a big, old-fashioned family Christmas thing. Too many cookies and the Carpenters' Christmas album."

Unpredictably, Juliet feels her smile from before start to return, but then most of her emotions tend toward the unpredictable these days. "Ugly sweaters, too?"_ And a pregnant undergrad ex-girlfriend?_

"Well, you never know."

They lapse into silence for a moment, Jack chuckling a little, and Juliet _knows_ this is one of those times she's supposed to think of something to say in return, but she's never been remotely good at small talk. Finally Jack clears his throat. "Do you... what do you still need for the baby?"

"I um... I'm OK, Jack, really." Goddammit. The truth is, she needs plenty, still. A stroller, and maybe one of those baby-backpack things so getting around campus will be easier. And probably a car seat, which is ridiculous without a car, but how else are they supposed to get home from the hospital? And a changing table, or at least some sort of changing pad to put on top of her dresser. Right now she's got clothes, diapers, baby shampoo, diaper rash cream, powder, thermometer, pacifiers... A woman in the building told her that baby swings should be called anti-crying devices. It's mind-boggling what babies need; at this point she feels like the baby owns as many things as she herself does. And if she's not able to nurse for some reason, she's going to have to worry about bottles and formula; if she's lucky, she'll somehow be able to afford a breast pump and a babysitter. She closes her eyes for a minute, thinking she needs to start making some lists. The newspaper ads from babysitters don't look so encouraging right now.

"Juliet, I told you I want to help."

"I... I still need a stroller," she hedges.

"Just a stroller?"

"Jack."

"What would you say if I said we should go shopping?"

"That sounds awfully hypothetical."

"Am I allowed to tell you I'd like to take you shopping?" He actually sounds a little bit irritated now, and she flushes at her own stubbornness, like she's creating a game just to make his life harder.

"Yes. OK."

"OK? So I'd like to take you shopping?"

Juliet rolls her eyes at the ceiling while silently admonishing herself for doing so. Probably anyone else in her situation would be thrilled. "Thank you. Yes."

* * *

The strangest thing about this entire experience is probably the fact that the baby-store employee obviously thinks they're a couple, and there's not exactly a pressing need to correct the poor girl. Juliet has to talk Jack out of a crib and high chair. "There's just not room for them now, and he'll be in the bassinet at least a couple of months." He doesn't like that, he's obviously one of those people who wants everything at once, but they order a changing table to be delivered, find a stroller she likes, and one of those strap-a-baby-to-your-chest things, which it turns out is called a Snugglie.

"What about those baby swings?" Jack says suddenly to the salesgirl. "I hear those can really calm them down."

"Where did you hear that?" Juliet can't stop from asking.

Jack looks over at her, confused. "I've been asking around."

Juliet bites her lip, trying to suppress a smile. "You have?"

He shrugs. "There's a guy in my cohort who has a baby."

"Oh."

The salesgirl blinks on her smile again, starts talking about the models they carry, leading them over to the section. Juliet keeps sneaking little looks at Jack, and she can't stop herself from thinking that maybe he actually does care. As in, cares in some actual concrete emotional way, not that he's just doing this because it's an obligation, the right thing to do, because he gets to swoop in and play some hero when she's didn't need saving in the first place.

They pick out a swing that she thinks might actually have a chance of fitting in her living room. "This one, I think we can even fit in the car," Jack says, then snaps his fingers. "Oh! Car seat!"

Juliet nods. "The funny thing is, I'll probably only need it to get him home from the hospital."

"Well, what about when I have him?"

She thinks she stops breathing for a moment. "What?"

Jack just looks at Juliet, confused. "I mean, aren't I... going to... have him, sometimes?"

The salesgirl shifts from one foot to another, looking confused, then embarrassed.

"Could you give us a minute?" Juliet manages, and she leaves.

The thought had legitimately never crossed Juliet's mind. She tries to figure out exactly why she hates the idea so much. It's just, it's _her_ baby, not his. Not really. Is it? Too many emotions are suddenly playing out on her face, she can feel them, and she wishes she could turn into a blank slate right now, at least on the outside, and she can't.

"He's my kid too, Juliet."

Juliet wishes she didn't, but she suddenly feels like he played her. Like he took her out, bought her all this stuff, and now she can't say no. Except Jack doesn't really work like that... does he? He can be tone-deaf sometimes, but not manipulative. She tries to breathe more slowly. "I'm going to be breastfeeding, so... at least at first, we can't really be apart for that long."

Jack nods quickly, too quickly, like he was expecting her to yell at him, or storm off, and she's glad she kept her cool. The whole concept is going to take some getting used to though. That he's sticking around, that he's telling the truth, and she believes him now, but she's not sure if that just scares her more.

"We can talk about it some other time," he replies.

"OK." Her mouth feels like it's full of sawdust.

* * *

It takes three trips to get most of the stuff upstairs to her apartment, mainly because Jack won't let her carry anything. She's organizing when he gets in with the last box, the swing. "I could put this together tomorrow, if you want?"

"What, you think I don't know my way around a toolbox?"

He grins. "Nope. You're the one who taught me how to change a tire, remember?"

"I do, in fact."

"It's just that - do you even _have_ tools in this apartment?"

"Well... you got me there. I have a hammer, for hanging pictures. That's it."

Jack glances at her blank walls. "Sure about that?"

"I've been a little too busy gestating lately."

He laughs, an actual laugh that's not at all like a chuckle. "You're doing it very well."

"I almost went as a watermelon for Halloween. You want something to drink?" She reaches for the remote, flips on the TV to have some noise so the gaps in their conversation won't be so obvious.

"Water would be great, thanks. Hey, 'March of the Wooden Soldiers'."

Juliet gets out a couple of glasses. "I always loved that movie. It would always be on - "

''The day after Thanksgiving."

"Yes! And my dad and I would watch it every year while my mom and Rachel went shopping."

"There were a lot of years my grandfather would stay over on Thanksgiving. And we'd always watch it the next day. My mom would go shopping too, and my..." He trails off.

"I could make coffee, if you want."

"Yeah? You're not supposed to have caffeine, though."

"Or hot chocolate. I'm impressed they actually sell it in L.A., so..." She shrugs. _Now you say something._

"Hot chocolate would be good."

And she's not exactly sure how it happens, but somehow they end up on her couch watching this creepy but beloved old black-and-white movie. They stay on opposite sides of the couch, drinking their hot chocolate, and somewhere in the middle of it Jack calls for takeout, and they eat Pad Thai and spring rolls, and don't talk a whole lot. But somehow it's the kind of not-talking that's OK.

When he leaves, she tells him she'll go to his parents' for Christmas, and hopes she's not making a huge mistake.


	28. The Ghost of Christmas Not Caring

_"I was blessed with a birth and a death  
and I guess I just want some say in between." _

- Ani DiFranco, "Talk to Me Now"

* * *

The exterior of the house is done up with strands of greenery, simple white lights. _'Tasteful' is the word of the day, boys and girls._ Just before Jack cuts the engine, he darts a look over at her. "So did I mention that Aunt Nadine showed up yesterday with a surprise boyfriend?"

"Is that your way of telling me that I won't be the main subject of gossip here today?"

He flashes a smile, however brief. "Well, I don't know if I would go that far."

There's a second when he holds the door open for her that during which she's tempted to spin around and run away and forget the whole thing, except she's holding a stupid basket of dinner rolls and she thinks that throwing dinner rolls as she sprinted away would rightfully earn her a place in the looney bin. And she'd practically pleaded with Jack to find out something she could bring; her parents had always brought wine over to people's houses, which she obviously wasn't going to do even if she legally _could_ have bought it, which she can't. And Juliet knew, after all, where Margo got her desserts. "My mom says all she wants is for you to show up," he kept saying over and over until she'd convinced him to find out something, anything.

In the middle of the entryway, two boys are tussling over the remote control for a small, battery-operated truck. The boys are maybe eight and ten, and the Oriental rug's all rolled up on one end, the wheels skittering over the shiny wood floor. "Hi," says the older of the boys says to Juliet and Jack, vaguely disinterested, and his younger brother grabs the remote out of his hand. "HEY! Give it!"

Jack looks amused. "These are my cousins, Toby and Will. Guys, this is Juliet."

The younger, Toby, gives a wave while trying to keep ahold of the remote control with his other hand as Will tries to dig it out from around his tightly curled fingers. "Do you play foosball?"

"Me?" Juliet asks.

"Yeah." Will finally gets the remote back, hooting with triumph. "They got a foosball table downstairs, in the rec room. From when Jack was a kid, right?"

"That's right," Jack says.

Will turns back. "So do you?"

"Huh?"

"Do you. Play. Foosball?" he repeats slowly, impatiently.

"Oh. Well, I used to play with my friends sometimes, but I..."

"Are you any good?"

_The best,_ she thinks, but it's been ages. If only she could spend the day hiding in the Shephards' rec room. These kids don't know how good they have it.

Jack shifts next to her. "Guys, later, OK?"

* * *

Margo's in the kitchen with the two women who must be her sisters, visiting with their families, and she hastily stubs out a cigarette in the amber-colored ashtray on the counter as Jack and Juliet enter. This surprises Juliet; she doesn't remember Margo smoking before, during the only other time she was at the house._ It's a great hobby, really. Productive. Healthy. And secondhand smoke should be totally awesome for your grandson. So, thanks for that. _

More surprising is the small smile on Margo's face, a smile that seems hesitant, but genuine enough. "Merry Christmas. We're glad you could join us."

Juliet puts the basket of dinner rolls on the counter, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Suddenly it feels like each and every first day of school. "Thanks for having me."

"I told Jack a hundred times, you really didn't need to bring anything," Margo admonishes.

"It really wasn't any trouble." Now that Juliet doesn't have anything to hold in front of her, she suddenly thinks she must look very, very pregnant. Would that be the equivalent of the first horrible day of sixth grade, discovering she was suddenly taller than all the other kids?

"Well, we're glad you're here," Margo repeats, like she's pre-programmed this entire wonderful, magical day and has to read straight from the script, no deviations. "Juliet, these are my sisters - Adele, and that's Nadine."

Adele shakes Juliet's hand, but Nadine reaches over and gives Juliet a quick hug. "Good to meet you. If you came in through the front, I think you already met my hellions. Oh, and congratulations, by the way."

_Congratulations_. Juliet mulls over the word, and how furious she'd been with Jack for saying it. But it sounds kind of nice coming out of someone else's mouth. It's not exactly a word she's heard a lot. Of course, as she's pulling away, Juliet realizes she and Margo haven't actually touched, but now it would be way too awkward. Nonetheless, she can't help but slide her eyes over to Jack, looking for some sort of silent direction.

Jack smiles encouragingly. "They're all in from Chicago." Which he'd already told her, but now that means she's supposed to say something, right?

"Well, at least you won't have to shovel any snow here." Everyone chuckles; Juliet smiles politely and, also, wants to leave right fucking now.

"Where's everyone else?" Jack asks.

"Mostly in the living room. Jessie is... somewhere, I don't know," Adele says, fiddling with her wine glass. That must be the cousin in college. Adele looks over at Juliet. "I suppose you could say she's _my_ hellion, although I'm hoping she's grown out of that by now."

"Not bloody likely," Jack says, and grins.

"Juliet, how are you feeling these days?" Margo interjects.

_Margo, we were just on another subject that was NOT ME, dammit. _"Oh, fine." She smiles politely, not elaborating._  
_

"Can I get you something to drink?"

"I'm fine, thanks." _Just fine, and still smiling politely. My face is going to hurt by the end of today._ Why had she thought this was a good idea, again?

"Are you sure, not even some water...?"

Is everyone looking at her? Is she wearing some kind of sign that says_ Pregnant people need to drink 8-10 glasses of water per day_? "OK, thanks."

Margo looks relieved, like she has something to do finally, and slips off her stool, goes over to the fridge. One of those nice stainless steel ones with the water-and-ice dispenser right in the door. "Ice?"

"No, thanks."

Margo's just returned to the table with Juliet's water when the back door opens and Jack's other cousin slips into the room, smelling like cigarette smoke. Juliet feels her mouth quirk into an actual (read: unforced) smile, that she was obviously doing exactly what the women in here had been doing, although the cousin's obviously still feeling pressured to hide it.

Jessica is short and thin, dark-haired. "Hey," she huffs, giving Juliet a once-over.

"Jessie, this is Juliet," Adele says. "Juliet, this is Jack's cousin Jessica. She's a junior at Cornell."

"Nice to meet you," Juliet repeats for what must be the fifth time today.

"Yeah, you too." Jessica nods, and Juliet recognizes the look she's giving her. The _please tell me pregnancy isn't contagious_ look that she'd gotten so often she's learned to just ignore it, except Jessica looks desperately like she's trying to think of what else to say. "You go to UCLA?" she finally asks.

"Yeah," Juliet says. "I'm a junior too."

Now Jessica looks over at Jack, and Juliet feels like someone needs to say something that isn't in any way about the elephant in the room.

"Jessie's studying abroad next semester," Adele says, and Juliet can tell she's not saying it to be mean or invite a comparison, just to make conversation. And Juliet can _also_ tell that as soon as the words leave Adele's mouth, Adele's practically cringing.

Ugh. Are they all just hanging around here, pitying her because they think she's gone and ruined her life? Juliet can't fucking stand pity, and she usually doesn't cope so well with it. Yet somehow she suddenly thinks she must have just gotten a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Not Caring, because she finds a smile. "That's great. Where?"

Jessica's face is tinged pink. "Um, Paris," she mumbles.

_Paris. Well, you don't say. Must be lovely this time of year._ "What are you studying?" she manages, and then decides now is a good time to take a really long sip of water.

"Um. Art history."

"Juliet's pre-med," Margo puts in.

She takes another long sip. Is Margo trying to... What the hell is Margo trying to do?

Jessica flashes another look over to Jack. "Well, that makes sense."

Jack finally finds a way to ease back into the conversation. Or, ease out of it, whatever. "Um... we should... probably go say hi to everyone else."

In the living room, Christian's in an armchair by the empty fireplace, and who the hell needs a fireplace in L.A., anyway? He's holding a mug of something, Jack had mentioned his father had quit drinking again, and it seems like that's still holding up. _Oh, good, a Christmas miracle. _

Christian eases out of the chair, smiling, and reaches forward to grasp Juliet's hand. "We're so glad you could be with us today," he tells her, and his voice sounds kind, and his eyes look astonishingly blue, not at all like Jack's, and if Christian were anyone else in the world, she'd probably be tempted to hold onto his hand for too long.

Their Christmas tree is done up in white lights, too, with mostly silver and white ornaments. Her heart pangs in protest when she remembers all those tacky homemade ornaments she and Rachel had made as kids, the ones their mom had insisted hanging up year after year no matter how much they'd embarrassed Rachel and Juliet as they got older.

Juliet gets introduced to the uncles, or anyway, one uncle - Cam, Adele's husband - and then Frank, Nadine's surprise boyfriend. Then there's Jack's grandfather, Ray, who looks surprisingly young. He actually reaches out and gives Juliet a tight hug, a real one. "Merry Christmas." The baby chooses that exact moment to kick, _hard,_ and Juliet knows he must feel it from the slow smile that spreads across his face, but he doesn't say a word, just settles back into his chair, smiling and shaking his head.

Her heart is beating a little too fast. OK, so people are sort of being overly nice. But Overly Nice is not pity. Overly Nice, she can deal with. Juliet and Jack stake out a spot on one of the couches, and eventually the crowd from the kitchen converges on them, and there's small talk and appetizers, with Margo leaving to check on the food in the oven periodically. Everyone is sort of leaving Juliet alone for the time being, and she supposes that could be considered another Christmas miracle. Turns out Frank's a commercial pilot, and he gets everyone laughing with stories about ridiculous passengers and never-ending hauls to places like Guam. (Where _is_ Guam, anyway?)

Juliet keeps her voice low as she leans in toward Jack. "I wonder if I was ever on one of his flights."

Jack nods, watching him too. "I keep thinking the same thing, actually. Maybe he just reminds us of someone else?"

She has a thought then, and can't quite stop the giggle. "Yeah, Burt Reynolds."

His laugh rings out as his younger cousins skitter back into the room. "Are you gonna play foosball with us or not?" Toby demands.

Jack catches Juliet's eye. "OK. We're in."

* * *

Foosball. Foosball is a fucking perfect distraction, dammit. The boys enthusiastically divide them into teams, Juliet with Will; Jack with Toby. Juliet kicks all their asses in the first three games. "You've been holding out on me, huh?" Jack asks as Toby runs across the room after Juliet flips the ball out of the goal.

Juliet actually giggles. "I prefer to remain an enigma as much as possible."

Footsteps thump down the stairs, and Jessica is standing at the bottom of the stairs. "Do I get a turn or what?"

Will points at Juliet. "You can take Juliet's spot, she's disqualified."

"Excuse me?"

"Hey!" Toby protests. "Not fair, she's on _my_ team!"

Will shakes his head firmly. "She misrepresented herself."

Jessica punches Will on the arm. "I can wait my turn, doofus."

Juliet has to go to the bathroom anyway. "It's OK."

"I can..." Jack begins.

So, great, is she supposed to advertise that she has to pee? "Jack, it's fine. I'll be right back." She arches an eyebrow, and he gets it, finally. He ought to have, for God's sake; at the baby store she'd had make pit stops _twice_.

She's coming out of the bathroom when she sees Ray in the hall, tries to offer another polite smile.

"Well, there you are. Where's the rest of your spectacular generation?"

Juliet nods her head at the other end of the hall, where the basement door is. "Foosball."

"Ah. I got disqualified for being too good."

She laughs softly. "I think the same thing just happened to me."

Ray chuckles. "Welcome to the family." Except he's not saying it as a joke, and she feels her smile smooth out into blankness.

Oh, god. Does he think they're getting married or something? "I'm not - uh, I mean, Jack and I aren't - "

He rests a hand on her arm briefly. "I know. That doesn't matter. I can tell you're a sweet girl. I know these things, I'm a very good judge of character. And whatever happened with my grandson, well. It doesn't matter anymore. You're going to be my great-grandson's mother. That makes you one of us."

Is that supposed to be a good thing? Except he's looking at her so kindly she almost wants to cry, and Nadine was sweet to her, and Jack's parents are clearly trying, here. And she sort of needed a family anyway, right? So she nods.

* * *

**This is only half of Christmas, but I thought I'd split it up here so it doesn't end up too long. Please leave a review! They've kind of been falling off again lately, and I'm trying hard to stay motivated. The second half of this should be a doozy, if that sweetens the pot any.**


	29. Wake Up

**This is still not all of Christmas, and therefore this is a very short chapter... but I thought I'd throw all you lovely commenters a bone here, and put up what I have done. Thanks for all the reviews on the last chapter! It was great to read them.**

* * *

_"So I'm beginning to see some problems _  
_with the ongoing work of my mind _  
_and I've got myself a new mantra. _  
_It says "Don't forget to have a good time."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Present/Infant"

* * *

Will grudgingly lets Juliet back into the game when Jessica wants to go call her boyfriend. This time around, she reigns in her wondrous foosball skills for the next couple of rounds, easing back into his good graces. Jack catches her eye, grinning, when Will gloats a little too much about making a goal, and she knows she's been found out, at least by him.

The baby's been pretty still this entire time, as he often tends to be when she's moving around a lot herself, but at some point he obviously grows impatient of the ordeal, and jams a foot into her ribs. Juliet jerks back a little bit, unable to prevent the discomfort on her face, and Jack takes half a step forward. Which proves sort of pointless, considering the foosball table is still between them.

"Are you OK?" he asks, alarmed, his words all bumping into each other.

She waves a hand in the air. "No, I'm fine, it's just - a foot in the ribs."

Toby's standing next to her, looking a little bit mesmerized. "It's kicking?"

"Well... he _was."_

"Whoa. Can I feel it?"

Juliet stays still for a second, waiting to feel the baby shift again, but of course now that something's expected of him, he's settled down again. "I think he stopped."

Toby looks disappointed, which is sort of cute. She's reminded of that Halloween party, which had somehow turned into a drunken belly-groping fest for half the attendees, and she feels the ends of her lips twitch up. At least Christmas with the extended Shephard family is proving a bit more wholesome. So she starts rubbing at the top of her belly, near the spot where he'd jabbed her last.

"Baby," she says in a soft, vaguely sing-songy voice. It's the voice she's taken to using with David, when it's just the two of them. She should probably be embarrassed, using that stupid voice in front of other people, except it's just a couple of kids, and Jack, and sure, she constantly goes back and forth between caring and not caring, but right now she isn't, so... "Baby... Someone wants to play with you. Come on, baby, wake up."

_Come on, baby, wake up._

All of a sudden the edges of her vision blacken and why does she hear clanking metal, hear the steady drip of cold water, and how does she _know_ it's cold? And a woman's voice calling from up above her, and it feels like something - no, someone, someone - is holding her and touching her face (an_d come on, baby, wake up)_ and then for a second she can't see at all, she can't even fucking breathe, but just as she starts to reach out for the wall behind her, the baby twitches and then starts fidgeting.

What in the hell was THAT?

She shakes it off quickly, before Jack can get worried or freaked out or whatever it is that he gets, and instead she reaches for Toby's hand, places it over the top of her belly. His eyes grow wide as he feels it. "Whoa."

Will's watching them with some interest, his head quirked to the side a little. "OK, can I feel it too?"

She nods, but he only reaches out for a second before he pulls his hand back. "Too weird," he mutters, shaking his head.

Toby's hand is still on her when Juliet raises her face a little, sees Jack watching them intently, and suddenly she feels translucent and utterly opaque all at once, like she should have _his_ hand over the baby, and he's never even felt it for himself, but instead they just stand frozen, watching each other curiously, still divided by the foosball table like it's six inches of unbreakable glass.

* * *

Dinner is bearable, and she sits with Jack on one side and Ray on the other. Frank and Nadine are maybe drinking a little too much, and Juliet doesn't miss the passing look between Margo and Christian before she darts her eyes back to her plate. The kids are chattering on about their new Gameboys and wanting to know how come they're only allowed to play for an hour each day, even today when it's _Christmas_ and they_ just got them_, etc. etc.

Is this the sort of thing she's going to have to navigate someday? At a dinner table, on Christmas, her and David and... And who? Some random boyfriend? A husband, someday? Of all the crazy things. Like anyone will ever be interested in her now. But, maybe, at the dinner table, her and David and Rachel? Will Rachel still be...? Suddenly a wave of nausea passes through Juliet, and she has to take slow deep breaths as she'd trained herself to do all those months ago. _Think about something else_, she reminds herself.

"You OK?" Jack murmurs to her, and she nods without speaking.

She's been so good lately, not having to Think About Something Else. Just taking it all as it comes, but the truth is, seeing this family, even with whatever problems she knows lie under the surface, they're all here today and that's... It sort of makes her feel hopeful, somehow.

Jack's still watching her curiously.

"I'm OK," she whispers back.

* * *

After dinner, the kids want to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas special, and Margo shoos Juliet out of the kitchen when she tries to help clean up.

"Does this mean I don't have to help either?" Jessica asks.

Nadine throws a towel at her. "Oh, get out of here."

Once they're in the hall, Jessica smiles apologetically. "I gotta take a smoke break." She ducks out through the sunroom at the rear of the house. Juliet pauses in the hallway, not sure what the hell she's supposed to do now. Honestly, she'd like to find Toby and Will in the den. Who doesn't like the Charlie Brown Christmas special, all that jazz and the weird dancing and Pig Pen's dirt churning up in the snow? The tinkling piano notes of the pine needles fluttering to the ground? But she's going to look like a baby if she sits in there with the kids, isn't she? No, she's supposed to socialize with the grownups.

This is just the way life is.

She's still immobilized in the hall, though, when the floor creaks and Jack rounds the corner and she lifts her face. He smiles when he sees her. "I was wondering where you'd gone."

"I was just coming in."

Jack keeps walking, stops when he gets close. "I don't know, I thought maybe we could sit in with the little guys."

"Yeah?"

He shrugs. "It's up to you, but... who doesn't like the Peanuts special?"

A smile springs to her lips, unbidden, and suddenly the baby starts moving again and Jack is so close, he's right there, and she doesn't even think about it before she reaches for his hand and lays it across her belly. His eyes widen, his lips parting in surprise, and she tilts her chin up, watching him, and they're so close she can feel the warmth of his skin and she's not sure why she's standing here, so still and watching him.

His big hand rests against her, pressing more firmly at the fingertips, and he's looking right into her eyes and she's looking right back at him, not shy anymore and not afraid either, not right now, and she just feels so open, somehow.

The door clatters at the end of the hall and without turning around, she can smell the faint odor of cigarette smoke. "You guys want to watch the Charlie Brown thing?" Jessica asks, and Juliet starts to laugh.


	30. This Is CNN

**This one goes out to eyeon for leaving review #300!**

* * *

_"I'm not trying to give my life meaning_  
_ by demeaning you _  
_and I would like to state for the record _  
_I did everything that I could do."_

- Ani DiFranco, "32 Flavors"

* * *

Seating arrangements are all shuffled around for dessert, and she finds herself sitting at one end of the table next to Margo. Christian's moved up from his end of the long mahogany table and he's directly across from her now, and Juliet doesn't exactly feel calm about this new arrangement, even though Jack's there next to her.

Jack and Christian are somehow having a way-too-long conversation about the Red Sox, which seems silly to Juliet since it's not even baseball season, but then what does she know? They never even went to a Dodgers game, right?

At some point though, Margo's obviously had enough of the this-is-the-only-thing-we-have-in-common discussion, clearing her throat and reaching over to touch Christian's hand. He trails off, and Jack blinks, glancing uneasily between his parents.

"Juliet," Margo begins in a slow voice. "You weren't here earlier for the gift exchange, and we have something we wanted to give you."

Juliet suddenly feels like this massive dining room is actually way way way too small, and Jack's parents are watching her intently, and Jack's looking at his parents, furrowing his brow, confused. "You - you really didn't have to..." she begins.

Christian shakes his head. "Nonsense. We wanted to get you something that would help you out with the baby."

Margo's holding out a small wrapped box now, and Juliet was thinking more along the lines of _playpen_, but she shakily reaches for it. Jack still looks confused, uneasy, and it's clear that whatever's going on, he has no part in it.

Margo and Christian both look excited though, despite her hesitation. "Open it," Christian says.

Juliet smiles politely. She can see other family members at the table starting to watch now, and if there's anything she hates, it's being the center of attention, so she figures the quicker she gets this over with, the quicker everyone can go back to whatever it was they were talking about amongst themselves.

She unwraps the paper, lifts the lid, and there in the small box is... a set of keys? Car keys, by the looks of them, and for a second she's completely confused, and then reality dawns on her, and _holy shit_ and she raises her eyes to Jack's parents, pretty sure that her mouth is hanging open a little bit too far.

Margo and Christian are (uncharacteristically, she thinks) smiling hard. "We just thought," Margo says quickly, "what was it that you really needed?"

"It's a Volvo," Christian puts in. "Brand-new, safest car in the world. A 940. We have it in the garage so Jack couldn't ruin the surprise."

So it turns out it's possible to be both horrified and thrilled at the same time. Because, Jesus Christ she needs a car, she's been dreading the thought of taking a squalling baby on the bus, and how was she supposed to get groceries, and a million other things. But in the instant before she can force a response from herself, plenty of other things run through her head, too. They just went ahead and did this, didn't talk to her, didn't talk to Jack, just went out and bought a car and hid it in the garage and sprang this on them at dessert, and how involved do they think they're going to _be_ in David's life, because she can't imagine that would be all that good of an idea.

And yet at the same time, how exactly would she be able to deny them that now, when they gave her a brand-new car? This reeks of manipulation through-and-through, and yet when she drags her eyes back to them, they look far too hopeful for Juliet to be certain that's the case.

"I... I, thank you, thank you so much, but I can't - I couldn't possibly accept this."

"Well, of course you can," Margo says, almost surprised. "We want our grandson to be safe. You can't possibly disagree with us on that."

Christian nods firmly, and although Juliet's hasn't seen all that much of a family resemblance between him and Jack until now, there it is, that same determination peeking out. "It's bought and paid for. Just waiting for you to drive it. We can go down to the DMV any day this week and have it registered under your name."

"I just... I don't think I can..." What the hell is she supposed to say to them?_ I'm concerned you're trying to get under my good graces a little too conspicuously, and I wouldn't give you unfettered access to my son if my life depended on it, but sure, I need a car so I'll take it?_

Margo actually reaches out and curls Juliet's fingers around the box. "Of course you can."

Juliet's blatantly aware that everyone else at the table is still watching the proceedings like this is CNN or something. "I - OK. Thank you. Thank you so much."

Jack shifts next to her. "You - " He's directing this at his parents, she realizes. "You - don't you think you should have talked to me about this first?"

Christian chuckles patronizingly. "And have you try to talk us out of this? For what reason, your own pride?"

"No, I just - you really should have said something to me. It's not - you can't just do this without asking!"

"And tell me, Jack, who's paying _your_ bills right now? So you get to swoop in and play the hero."

The noise she hears is Jack's chair scraping along the wooden floor, and he throws his linen napkin on the table in front of him, stalking out of the room. And perfect, now Juliet's sitting here, wishing she could sink lower and lower in her chair until she disappeared and woke up somewhere else, perhaps on a deserted island. Hm, no, actually maybe not that, but... someplace else, anyway.

How could Jack just storm away and leave her with them? What the hell is she supposed to say now?

The silence is broken with a snort from Frank, down at the other end of the table. "Well, Chris, you really know how to take the wind outta that boy's sails."

With the Shephards' attention diverted for a second, Juliet takes the opportunity to slide her own napkin off her lap. "I... I'm sorry, excuse me."

* * *

She leaves through the kitchen archway, the same way Jack had gone, and the burst of cooler air that hits her once she's in the kitchen at least tells her that he's gone outside. Which way? There's out through the sunroom, and then. Oh, and then there's the garage.

Chewing on her lip, she opens the door slowly, and the first thing she sees is a shiny, dark-blue hood, and then the rest of the car comes into view, and for a second she's a little confused, struck with a strange but false sense of deja vu, like hasn't she _owned_ a dark-blue Volvo before? But obviously she hasn't; the only car she's driven was a junky hand-me-down Mazda from her mom, and she'd sold it before she'd left for college to have money for the semester.

Juliet raises her face, following along the lines of the car, and sure enough, Jack's standing at the other end of it, in a darkened corner of the garage.

She wants to say something vaguely comforting to him, it can't be exactly easy to be undermined by your own parents, especially in front of a crowd, but she can't manage it, and her words come out angry. "Thanks for leaving me alone out there."

Jack meets her eyes then, and she almost crumbles in that instant, because he just looks so defeated, somehow. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm always sorry."

_Pity party, table for two? _"Jack."

"Well, what do you want me to say, Juliet?"

"I don't know."

"You needed a car," he finally says.

"Yeah," Juliet sort of mumbles, glancing back at it, and god, there's even a rear-facing carseat already buckled into the back, and looking at it, well... it feels difficult to be angry with his parents now. Like they really do care, or at least they're trying, and isn't that what they're _all_ trying to do in this impossible situation? "It's... it's really nice of them." If Jack thinks differently, well, he can go and say that himself.

And he does. "Don't you see what they're trying to do, Juliet?"

She plays dumb. "What?"

"They think they can just swoop in and throw a bunch of money at the problem, and they get to play the heroes."

The _problem? _Juliet lets out a long, angry sigh. Where is she even supposed to begin with that. "What, so only _you_ get to do that?"

"No, that's not what I - " Jack blinks a couple of times and lets out a frustrated sigh of his own. "They feel sorry for you."

"Sorry for me," she repeats skeptically. Thinks back to Margo smirking at her in the bakery.

"Because of your family situation, and your age, and..."

"So what?" she demands, but thinks, _you know what? Maybe they're right.__ And fuck it, so WHAT if I get a car out of this?_

"So my parents think I ruined your life!" he bursts out, and the look on his face just then makes her think. Think of every awful thing they've probably ever told him, the way they've obviously cut him down again and again, not that he's ever come out and said that to her. But it's clear anyway, and suddenly for the first time in a very long time, she does feel sorry for him. She approaches him slowly, like he's a wild animal. Unpredictable. Although really, _unpredictable_ could be either one of them.

"You didn't ruin my life, Jack."

"Well, they've made it pretty clear they don't think I can cut it as a father. And neither do you, so -"

"What are you talking about?"

"You tell _me_, Juliet. Why did I find out you were pregnant only because my mother saw you?"

She stares at him, trying to add up everything she was feeling last spring and summer, how far removed that all somehow feels by now. "I was mad at you," she finally says. "For that thing with the other girl. But I told myself I didn't think it was fair to you, anyway. The baby. It wasn't your decision. I almost..." She can't believe she's telling him this now, but she keeps going anyway. "I almost had an abortion. I'd made the appointment. And then Rachel got sick, really sick, she was in the hospital, and. And I got scared. I was afraid I was going to end up alone." Suddenly she's blinking back tears, furiously. "I was just being selfish, and I-"

Jack's eyes are full of fear and compassion at the same time, somehow. "It doesn't matter. I - it's OK."

"I hate this," Juliet suddenly admits, not even sure where it's coming from. Not meaning to say it out loud. "Having to - it seemed so much easier somehow when I was alone."

But his expression hardens. "Then fine, Juliet. If you really want to do this on your own, go ahead."

Her expression hardens too. Why is this so difficult? "What I really want, Jack, is for you to not throw a hissy fit at every imagined slight."

"Oh, so you think this - " he flings a hand out at the car now, his voice rising - "is an imagined slight?"

"I know this might _seem_ like a shocking development to you, Jack, but not _everything_ is about you and your shitty relationship with your _fucking parents!" _She's loud now, and he looks shocked, and she realizes she's never sworn out loud to him, but she doesn't need this, doesn't need pressure from every side, and she's sure as hell determined that she's not getting involved with the Shephard family, not anymore, forget it, Margo and Christian can just go and fucking take the car back to the dealership if this is what it's going to be like, because she has enough going on with herself and David and school and Rachel, and she doesn't need all this extra manufactured angst on top of it all.

Jack's got his hand on her arm now, but she knows her eyes are flashing anger and she yanks her arm from his grasp, spinning around and nearly knocking into the side of that shiny new car before she's steady again. She's almost to the door of the house when it feels like all the oxygen is squeezed from her lungs, and she stops short, gasping and shaking and looking down at the growing puddle at her feet._ No no no NO NO NO, it's too early, it's too early IT'S TOO EARLY and _-

"Jack!"

He's by her side in an instant.


	31. Argument Winner

_"Think I'm going for a walk now,_  
_Feel a little unsteady._  
_Don't want nobody to follow me_  
_Except maybe you."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Untouchable Face"

* * *

_February 5, February 5_, and he's got one arm around her and the other hand cupping her elbow like he always used to do, and he's saying something about calling her doctor and getting to the hospital but her ears are buzzing and she's not ready for this SHE'S NOT READY and David can't possibly be ready for this either, oh god and six weeks too soon and she's thinking about incubators and oxygen and her brain's already circling around the worst case scenarios and her knees practically buckle.

"Juliet," Jack says for probably the third time before she finally looks away from the puddle at her feet.

"What?"

"Can you walk to my car?"

"We, we, we need to call my doctor."

"I'm going to get you to the car," Jack begins patiently, and she realizes this was what he was saying earlier, before she was really listening, "and then I'm going to go back into the house and call the doctor. Can you walk with me?"

Jack's car is out in front of the house, and they take two steps across the garage floor before another fear, this one totally irrational, slams into her. "Wait! Wait, I - don't leave me alone, I can't - I can't - "

"Do you want to come in the house with me to call?"

She stares at his face for a minute, trying to figure out what she wants, what she's trying to say, but all she can think is_ David, David, it's too early, February 5, _and then she considers the fact that her pants are soaking wet, and, "Wait, no - I, I can't go in there! Not like this." Juliet's near tears now and she can't figure out how or why, exactly, her brain's suddenly not working properly, and her fingers are digging into the flesh of his forearm.

Jack pauses for a few seconds, mentally weighing their options. "OK. Here's what we're going to do." He points to the black Mercedes at the other end of the garage. "My dad has a car phone. I have a copy of his keys, right here in my pocket. We'll call your doctor from the car. OK?"

"I - I don't know the number, it's - it's in my purse, and - it's in the house, and - " Juliet finally bursts into tears, _I need more time_ except she doesn't have it and she doesn't know what to do and she doesn't know how to give control over to Jack.

"We'll call Information," he says gently. "It's OK. Can you walk with me?"

Jack's unlocking her door when the most ridiculous fear occurs to her, the most ridiculous one so far, but at least the ridiculous ones don't involve David, and she grabs Jack's arm again, harder this time. "I'm going to ruin the seat!"

"Juliet, it's OK."

"No, I - " she's still sort of crying, and clinging to him, and it's like in this moment she doesn't know how to _not_ fall apart, she's acting crazy - "don't you have, couldn't we put something down, I just, I -"

Jack's eyes dart up to the metal shelves in the corner. "There are garbage bags up there. Can you wait just a second? I'm going to get some garbage bags." He's holding onto her still, speaking slowly, looking her right in the eyes, and it's like it's not even registering on him how batshit insane she's acting right now. She nods, and he takes three, four steps away from her, peels a couple of bags off the roll.

For some impossible reason, then, Juliet remembers peeling a bag off a roll just like that, at Jack's apartment when she was filling it up with the things she'd kept at his place, that night she'd told him to give her a ride or she'd be more than happy to take a cab, and now she slumps against the side of the car until he's spread out the bags to her satisfaction.

He eases her down into the passenger seat, reaches over for the seat belt and buckles her in like she's a child. "It's going to be OK, Juliet. I'm going to be right there with you, all right?"

All she can think to do is nod.

* * *

They're two blocks away when Jack taps the brake. "Wait. What hospital?"

"UCLA."

"Shit," he mutters under his breath, making the next U-turn, and in any other situation she probably would have laughed. All the same, she realizes St. Sebastian's is maybe more deeply ingrained in him than either of them had considered. One hand still on the steering wheel, Jack dials the car phone, presses the receiver to his ear. "L.A.?"

"Huh?" Juliet drags her eyes over to him.

"Your doctor's in L.A.?" But it's Christmas. What if her doctor's out of town, or busy, or...? Worse, what if it's the _other_ Dr. Burke who can help her tonight? Juliet struggles to get her breathing under control.

"Um... Uh, yeah."

"Los Angeles, California," he says into the phone, to the operator and then glances at Juliet again. "Doctor?" he whispers.

"Dr. Burke."

Jack looks dumbfounded for a second, and the car swerves a little like he's somehow forgotten that he's actually driving a car as his hands shimmy on the steering wheel. "What?" he says, and Juliet's not sure whether he's talking to her or the operator. "What did you just say?"

"Dr. Burke," she repeats, just in case. "Michelle. Michelle Burke. You have to make sure it's Michelle, OK? Not Edmund. He can't, I - not Edmund."

Jack blinks several times in quick succession, his forehead crimped up, and he lets out a long, ragged breath. "Um... Dr. Burke," he tells the operator in a strained voice. "Michelle Burke. Not Edmund."

What the heck is going on with him? _One_ of them has to stay sane right now, and she was sort of counting on Jack to be the one. Oh, and there she goes, counting on Jack. _Well, that didn't take long._

Jack talks to the Burkes' answering service, tells them Juliet's 33 weeks ("34. Today," she interjects, because suddenly it seems very very important to correct him) and then he tells them she's not having contractions - "Right?" - and she shakes her head and why is that supposed to be important right now, but she just feels like a hitchhiker in this all of a sudden, and she presses her head back against the headrest and closes her eyes._  
_

* * *

Dr. Burke - the good one, not the evil one, thank god - meets them at the hospital, and Juliet gets blood drawn, and an ultrasound, exam, IV, and they hook her up to a fetal monitor, and then draw more blood, and for awhile she's just going through the motions. Jack looks like he wants to keep interrupting Dr. Burke and the nurses but to his great credit, he doesn't, just lets them do what they need to do. "Your membranes did rupture, but you're not contracting, and sometimes at this stage of the game, they'll reseal on their own," Dr. Burke finally says.

What? So... she's _not_ having a baby tonight?

But then the doctor starts talking about the risk of infection, and something about a 48- to 72-hour time limit, usually, but sometimes if they can they'll wait to at least 36 weeks, and there's antibiotics in the IV and something about w_ait and see_.

"After 34 weeks, we'd deliver, and _before_ 34 weeks, we usually keep you in the hospital until delivery. Of course, you're _exactly_ 34 weeks today," and here Dr. Burke smiles like Juliet's doing this just to make things extra-complicated. "I'd like to do an amnio and check on the baby's lung maturity. If the lungs aren't mature, we usually give steroid shots to the mother, but they don't always make enough of a difference after about 33 and a half weeks."

_Perfect_, Juliet thinks. _Let's just keep making this difficult._

"Recently we've started using something called surfactant on preterm babies, which keeps the small air sacs in the lungs from collapsing. It helps make those sacs sticky enough to stay open, but I'm going to have a neonatologist come up here and talk to you both, OK?"

Jack nods and thanks the doctor when Juliet can't seem to figure out how to react, but he holds her hand for the amnio, which is something she doesn't really care to repeat in life. And Rachel in her memory, making some crack about feeling like a pincushion. Juliet's near tears again once Dr. Burke leaves, and Jack smooths Juliet's hair back from her face. "You're doing so well."

"Did you call your parents?" she suddenly blurts out.

"I - what?"

"They're going to be wondering why we just left and took your dad's car." The irrational part of her brain has started up again, trying to cling to worries about anything other than what's staring them in the face right now.

Jack looks confused. "It's OK, I'll call them later. Do you want me to call... your sister, or your dad?"

"No. Not now. I... I feel like my brain's not working right now," she practically whimpers, looking around the hospital room and trying to figure out what the hell is going to happen. And there are no answers written on the walls, so she looks back at Jack.

"The survival rate for 34 weeks is more than 99 percent," he says, taking her hand. Trying to be soothing. But it's hard not to think about that other one percent anyway, especially once the neonatologist comes in, and starts talking about respiratory distress syndrome, and apnea, and something called CPAP.

Juliet starts shaking her head.

"Continuous positive airway pressure," Jack puts in. "It helps them breathe, especially for late preterm babies. It doesn't breathe _for_ them; he probably won't need that."

"OK."

"It was developed in Sydney, Australia."

Sydney, Australia? _What? _Juliet gives him a blank look. "Why the _hell_ is that important?"

Jack looks confused as hell. "I have no idea. It's just something I read in school." They turn their attention back to the neonatologist, who looks a little confused himself at this point.

"Dr. Burke said your baby weighs about four and a half pounds," the doctor says gently. "Which is good, but we're also more concerned about lung maturity and brain development right now. Every day in the womb is worth two in the NICU, so we're just going to wait and see what your OB says. I could talk more about the long-term risks, but you don't need that right now, and we're going to take everything as it comes, all right?"

That's supposed to sound comforting, so she nods, and Jack thanks the doctor and then they're alone again, and things have calmed down, maybe. It's going to be awhile until they get the results on the amnio, which is what Dr. Burke's off dealing with.

(Why had he gotten so freaked in the car when she'd told him her doctor's name? Did the Burkes have some sort of falling out with his father at some point? Except they practice completely different fields of medicine, so when would they have even crossed paths? No, that doesn't seem like that's it.)

"Are you OK? Do you need anything?"

"A time machine, maybe."

Jack's clearly not following her, shaking his head, rubbing a hand over his face. Why does he look so weirded out? Maybe he's too tired? It's probably past 2 a.m. at this point.

"To six weeks from now," she clarifies, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Oh," he finally says.

She opens her eyes again and they watch each other for a long moment. He's sitting in the blue vinyl chair right next to her bed, on the left side since the IV's on the right, and her mind unspools to the fight they'd been having before this all started. How that seems like a thousand miles away at this point, and they smile awkwardly, sort of ruefully at each other.

"Water breaking during an argument means you automatically win," Jack finally says. He looks sad and guilty, somehow.

"I'm sorry I've been so awful to you," she whispers.

Jack shakes his head. "It's been a crazy few weeks. It's all right. I wasn't there in the beginning, I don't know what it was like for you."

"It was... kind of awful being in my own head back then, that's all. Once I told my sister, well... things got better. Then this semester, I don't know. I guess I kind of alienated everyone last year. I mean. Spending so much time with you back then, I..."

"I'm sorry."

"It was my own fault." _I'm still trying to grow up,_ is what she wants to say, but doesn't.

"Well, we've both done things we wish we hadn't," Jack says gently.

"Yeah," she says, almost in a whisper again.

"You're doing so well," he says. "Being so brave tonight."

Frankly, Juliet thinks she's been anything but, and she shakes her head, grateful he's here with her and trying not to think much beyond that.

"You think you can try to get some sleep?"

She nods, and he reaches out and takes her hand. His hand is solid and warm, and she curls her fingers around his. Closes her eyes and tries to sleep. She's not sure why she dreams about the two of them walking through a jungle in a downpour, but she's carrying a lit torch, the fire steaming in the rain with invisible voices whispering all around them, and when she opens her eyes again, the room is semi-dark, and Jack's asleep in the chair next to her, still holding her hand.

* * *

**So, sorry if you thought you were getting a BB David in this chapter. I worked for a preemie care company for a few months and did a lot of research on the side, so I think (hope?) this is vaguely accurate.  
**

**And thanks to user4815 for the "water breaking during an argument" line!**


	32. Squares

_"It's hard to point and say 'there'_  
_so you just sit on your hands_  
_and quietly contemplate_  
_your next bold move,_  
_the next thing you're gonna have to prove."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Your Next Bold Move"

* * *

Bored. She's bored.

It's funny, stuck here in the hospital, she didn't think boredom would be a pressing concern, but when the highlight of one's morning is a blood draw and some time hooked up to the fetal monitor, well, anything beyond that starts to seem interesting.

Like every morning, after the nurse leaves her alone, Juliet shuffles off to the bathroom for a shower and brushes her teeth, and then waddles right back on to bed. Supposedly she's lucky to even be permitted to do that, but the alternative is so not worth thinking about. Breakfast is scrambled eggs and toast, orange juice and a somewhat dented fruit cup, but it's edible, and reruns of stupid '70s sitcoms are on TV all morning, so there's that.

Dr. Burke had returned that first bleary-eyed, we-were-up-all-night morning with the amnio results; the baby's lungs weren't mature, and the antibiotics keep coming. "We can have him out in _minutes_ if we have to," the doctor had told them, which sounded at least partially reassuring.

Maybe.

And anyway, every single boring day that goes by without contractions or an infection is just fine by her if it means David will be OK. They're shooting for January 8, Dr. Burke tells her. It's no February 5, but that would get her to 36 weeks._ 1/08_, she tells herself._ 1/08, 1/08, 1/08._

Jack had stayed with her all through the first night, but after that the nurses had started booting him out when visiting hours were over. Margo and Christian had brought her purse to the hospital on the morning of the 26th so she could have her insurance card and then mercifully disappeared before she even had to see them. Jack has her keys now, and has gone back to her apartment for toiletries and books and socks, her robe, some cardigans. Exciting.

He even waters her plant. Thrilling.

The phone line was set up in her hospital room on the first day, but it had still taken her another second day before she'd finally called Rachel. And it turned out the delay was wise, because Rachel had pretty much freaked out at first, and Juliet couldn't have handled that any earlier.

She could hear Niall in the background pleading to know what was going on, and then after a few minutes, trying to calm Rachel down. "No no no, Juliet, I swear to god, I'm coming out there. I'll take the fucking bus if I have to."

"Listen, will you just stay put? I don't know how long I'm going to be in here, and I'd rather you were here when I really need you."

"Like you don't really need me now?" Rachel was maybe being sarcastic and maybe not, but it was oddly difficult to tell.

"Jack's here, and he's - "

"Ohhhh, I see how it is." And there was what? A _smirk_ in her voice?

"Oh come on, Rachel, will you just drop it? All I need right now are books and someone to bring me decent food now and then. And a sister to keep me company on the phone." Stupid long-distance costs. (There. That was a nice, relatively simple thing she could put on her Not Thinking About It list.)

Someone to bring her food now and then, yeah right. Jack shows up every day at 12:30 - and most days again at dinner time - with non-hospital food, always healthful but good, pasta with vegetables or grilled chicken and tomatoes, couscous, salads, enough for both of them, and he sits and eats with her. Sometimes it's takeout but mostly it's homemade, although Juliet wonders whether it's Margo or Jack doing the cooking.

She figures they'll all be happier if she doesn't inquire.

And today Jack's early, even, with the same insulated lunch carrier she's gotten used to seeing, and this time a green plastic bag he seems to hide a little behind his legs. She flicks off the TV as he sets up on the table that rolls over her bed, pulling out two somethings wrapped in foil and then two small Tupperware containers of salad, a little carton of apple juice for her and a can of Coke for him (he won't let her drink soda, which at this stage of the game is sort of absurd). And Juliet's trying to figure out exactly how it's happened that she's started actually depending on it, on him, and also when she stopped minding so damn much.

Even so, Juliet can't stop the grin that spreads across her face she unwraps the foil. "You brought me a cheeseburger?" she asks incredulously.

He shrugs, unwrapping his own. "Yeah, I thought maybe you were getting sick of the healthy stuff."

She sighs in gratitude even though she knows the Tupperware containers are full of salad, not fries. "God, thank you."

"You have no idea what I went through to make this for you," Jack answers, and then counting off on his fingers: "I killed the cow, processed the meat, baked the bun..." He points at the salad, rolling his eyes now. "And the fries... Try rendering animal fat."

Juliet laughs as she takes a bite, closing her eyes as she savors the first mouthful, because this is the best thing she's tasted in ages.

"New Year's Eve tonight," he comments as they eat.

Oh, yeah. Somehow she'd managed to forget. Well, whatever. Stuck in here, anyway. She takes another bite as she contemplates this. "Well, I guess we won't have the New Year's baby. At least I hope not." _We_. There, she said it. _Hmph_.

Jack nods, not really catching the significance, and why should he? He's always been a great believer in the use of _we_. He nods at the Tupperware. "Eat some salad."

She opens the salad and stabs some lettuce with the fork. Fries really would be a whole lot better. "So are you doing anything tonight?"

He hesitates. "Probably not."

"No, what?"

"Well, I... Some friends of mine are having a party, but..."

Juliet can't help from rolling her eyes, just a little. "Jack, I'm stuck in here, you're not." God, Rachel bitching that she was acting like such a martyr this fall, but then what the hell is Jack doing? Not that he's doing it on purpose, it's just... What exactly would be the point of him sitting at home alone on New Year's Eve just because she's going to be sitting _here_ alone on New Year's Eve?

He shrugs uncomfortably. "I brought you some books. Well, actually, I _bought_ you some books."

"Yeah?" She's gone through nearly everything interesting he'd brought her in the beginning. Rereading Salem's Lot yet again when you're supposed to be thinking pleasant thoughts for your fetus? Probably not such a hot idea.

"Thought you could use some new stuff."

When they're done eating, he brings that green plastic bag over to her, and she pulls out a huge stack, the new unabridged version of The Stand, and Four Past Midnight and Carrie (she's always meant to read that one), and so much for not reading creepy things anymore. And then The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Handmaid's Tale and The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, and then poetry - Notebook by Robert Lowell and two collections by e.e. cummings and one by Mary Oliver and then Leaves of Grass.

She looks up at him, a little stunned. "Thank you," she sort of stammers, thinking she'll be lucky to finish two or three of these before she's up nights with a crying baby and trying to get through school. But even so, just... If she had the time, she would read every single one of these, and it's a little weird, because she didn't think he knew her this well.

They spend the next couple of hours watching "To Kill a Mockingbird" on TV, and when it's over they disagree on whether they'd ever watched it together before.

* * *

Jack leaves for a few hours, only to drop off dinner for her before he's booted out at the end of visiting hours. She picks at her food, not really hungry and not really tired and not really feeling like reading tonight despite the Avalanche of Decent Reading Material. And, what? Is she supposed to watch Dick Clark and all those happy partying people in Times Square? Maybe she should call Rachel, except if Rachel's feeling well enough, she's probably off at some party anyway.

_Guess it's just you and me, kid._

She's finally reaching for Carrie when Michelle Burke steps into her room. "Happy New Year's Eve."

Juliet looks up, surprised. "You too." She'd never seen her this late in the day. "Is everything OK?"

"Everything's fine." Dr. Burke smiles a little, holds up a canvas tote bag. "Do you know how to crochet?"

"I... What? Why?"

The doctor shrugs, drags a chair over to the bed. "Thought maybe you'd enjoy a little company this evening. So, do you? Crochet?"

Juliet's thoroughly confused but shakes her head. Dr. Burke went to medical school to spend New Year's Eve crocheting with a knocked-up college student in a hospital room? "Um... no."

Dr. Burke leans over a little, fishes out blue and green and yellow yarn, a couple of metal hooks - crochet hooks. Juliet vaguely remembers her grandmother doing this. Seems like an old-lady thing to do, after all. "It's easy. Something to do to keep from going crazy while you watch all this bad TV. We can make some squares, start a baby blanket."

"I... OK?"

She's terrible at it at first, her rows come out crooked or all wrong or not at all, but after a half an hour or so, something clicks in her brain and Dr. Burke doesn't need to keep stopping her own work to correct her. After another 15 minutes, it's starting to even feel a little addicting, and they mostly make small talk about reading and Florida and how Dr. Burke is awful at skiing. Juliet's got almost all of a square when Dr. Burke leans over to help her on a dropped stitch, and Juliet sees she's not wearing her engagement and wedding rings anymore.

Reaction #1: Well, when the hell had _that_ happened?

Reaction #2: Thank _god_.

Juliet tries to hide the smile she feels trying to impress itself upon her face, not sure exactly what to do with the pride she feels for her _doctor_, of all people. That little weasel asshole didn't deserve her one bit. And she doesn't care who left whom if it means that this sweet, smart woman is finally free of that bastard.

As she's learning how to bind off her first square - which really doesn't look _that_ awful - Dr. Burke asks her what type of medicine she's been considering practicing.

"I don't know," Juliet admits. "I just... Maybe radiology?"

Dr. Burke sort of wrinkles her nose.

"What? You think it's too competitive of a field?"

"No, it's not that, I just..." She trails off for a minute, in thought. "You have a - sort of a lovely compassion about you, is all. I'd hate to see that squandered because you're hiding in a dark room."

Hiding in a dark room has actually always sounded pretty nice to Juliet, actually. And a way to help people _while_ hiding in a dark room? Even better. She shrugs. "I don't know."

Dr. Burke pats her knee as she stands up, putting her own two crocheted squares on the side table. "You keep working on those, and we'll get it into a blanket before you know it. Happy New Year."


	33. Board

_"Somebody do something,_  
_anything soon._  
_I know I can't be the only_  
_whatever I am in the room._  
_So why am I so lonely?_  
_Why am I so tired?_  
_I need company,_  
_I need backup,_  
_I need to be inspired."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Face Up and Sing"

* * *

By 1 p.m. she's already on her third ridiculous old-lady crochet square of 1991 - and, OK seriously wondering where the hell Jack is today - when Ray Shephard walks into her hospital room.

"Happy New Year," he says cheerfully.

"Um... You too. Hi." This is sort of confusing, and she's sitting here in a hospital gown and a cardigan she couldn't even button up anymore if she'd bribed it outright. But Ray's still standing near the doorway with a paper bag smiling at her, and she smiles back involuntarily.

He extends the bag toward her slightly. "You hungry?"

"Um... Jack usually..."

Ray nods. "I know. I thought maybe it could just be you and me today."

Is Jack too hung over from New Year's Eve? For god's sake. It just fucking figures, doesn't it? And so he called Ray to swoop in and keep her company? Wow, this is just great. You can always trust a guy who gets his grandfather to do his dirty work for him. Just the right kind of guy to go out and get pregnant by. _I really am brilliant sometimes_. She glances over at the stack of amazing books Jack had brought her just _yesterday,_ and now she's not even sure what to think. "You really don't have to..." she begins awkwardly.

Ray waves his free hand dismissively. "Nonsense. When my Alba was in the hospital, I remember how terrible she said the food was. I brought her lunch and dinner every day, just like Jack's been doing for you. I don't understand how my son can stand to work around all that terrible food every day. Must be what makes him so cranky." Ray nods at the chair beside her bed. "May I?"

"Sure."

He starts pulling out food, chicken soup with thick floury noodles, grilled turkey sandwiches with the cheese all melty, running out the sides with squashy tomatoes. "They gave me salad too, but who needs that? You want a Coke?"

"I think you might be my hero." She reaches out for the red and silver can, icy cold in her hand. "Jack wouldn't bring me any."

He shakes his head, his eyes twinkling. "Ehh, what's it going to hurt at this point?"

"That's exactly what I said." She pops the top and takes a long sip. "I never knew how good caramel syrup, chemicals and preservatives could _taste_ until now."

Ray chuckles a little, a sound that somehow both is and is not like Jack. "You know, you're funny when you let yourself be."

She shakes her head, blushing a little, moving her crochet stuff off her lap (or what's left of it) to pull the table toward them both. The food is ridiculously good, or maybe she was just getting too hungry, but neither of them speak for a few minutes. "How are you feeling?" he finally asks.

"Fine." It's automatic. And no one wants to hear about how these days she's Our Lady of Perpetual Backache, and how freaking difficult it is to get comfortable enough to sleep when she's this big, and how she has to go to the bathroom constantly and then there's the leg cramps and obviously, the general anxiety about the baby's health and oh yeah, labor and delivery at some point in the near future.

Ray gives her a skeptical look. "You're not a wonderful liar."

"I know." _I'm not?_

"I hear his name is going to be David."

She nods.

"Shephard or - or, what's your last name?"

Oh god. Is he just here to lobby for some macho need to carry on the family name? Except that doesn't seem like that's him. Christian, definitely. Not Ray. "Carlson," she says tentatively. "He's going to be David Carlson."

Ray nods, finishing the last of his soup. "Just curious. I'm not offended. Just thought somebody should broach the subject with you, and Jack was too, well..." He smiles a little. "Too chickenshit, if you'll excuse my language."

She laughs softly. "No comment."

"Fair enough. So" - he claps his hands overtop both his knees - "you have another one of those crochet hooks and some yarn?"

"What? Why?"

"I assume you're making a baby blanket, no? Don't you need some help?"

"You... You know how to crochet?" she asks incredulously.

"Well, don't tell any mutual acquaintances." Ray winks. "I have arthritis in my hands, and a lady friend told me that keeping them moving helps with the pain and swelling. Keeps the joints from locking up, you see. And it turns out she was right."

Juliet manages a bewildered nod. "My doctor just taught me how last night. There's another needle in the bag under the side table."

"Your doctor sat down with you and taught you how to crochet?"

She nods again.

Ray raises his eyebrows, impressed. "That's one hell of a doctor. You be like that one, you hear me?"

Somehow suddenly it feels like she has a parent again. Someone who cares about her, doesn't need anything from her, doesn't expect anything. Just wants to be there, take care of her, and maybe in its own way, that hasn't exactly been something she's had since she was fifteen or so. A sharp wave of longing for her mother rolls through her, but then she looks up, and Ray's face is so kind and open. "All right."

Ray rolls the table away, leans down and finds the other crochet hook. Nods firmly at her. "All right, then."

* * *

Three-quarters asleep on Saturday afternoon, and it feels like someone's watching her. Juliet drags herself up from exhaustion as best as she can, only it feels like her eyelids are glued shut. And then once they're open, she's not even sure she's seeing correctly for a moment.

Because her sister's standing at the doorway, arms folded across her chest, head cocked to the side. Rachel's hair has grown out another inch or so, not long enough yet to really lie down against her head just yet, and it's a little bit messy and a little bit spiky and also, somehow, just right.

"What are you doing here?" Juliet bursts out, only there's enough joy in her voice that she knows Rachel won't take it the wrong way.

"Oh please, like I'm gonna leave you trapped in here forever."

"Did you bring the cake with the file in it, then?" For a moment they just smile at each other from across the room, remembering when this situation had been reversed - or, well, sort of - and then Rachel is crossing the room and giving Juliet a big hug. In the past it felt like Juliet was always the one hanging on a little bit too long, but this time they're both hanging on, and it's not too long at all.

"How'd you get here?"

Rachel rolls her eyes. "Flapped my arms and flew."

"No, I mean - are you feeling well enough to - "

"Niall drove me."

"What? You're kidding, where is he?"

"Oh, he's downstairs. We didn't want to overwhelm you."

"Please. You're all _about_ overwhelming people."

Rachel laughs easily. "True. Sorry to interrupt your nap. You wanna go back to sleep?"

"What? No, you just got here! Wait, where are you staying? I can get my keys back from Jack if-"

"It's OK, Duncan has some friends in LA. He hooked us up." She grabs the chair, pulls it over. "So what's up with you? You really dragged that kid kicking and screaming into '91, didn't know you had it in ya."

_I most definitely had it in me; that's why I'm here in the first place._ Juliet blushes a little even at the thought. "I'm OK. He's OK." She shrugs. "I'm starting to..." She shakes her head.

"What?"

Just like that she's going from laughter to tears. That's one thing she's not going to miss about being pregnant. "I'm just, I've been stuck in here almost two weeks and all I ever do is lie around and just, how am I supposed to even have the energy to - " Angry tears and she's not even sure from where. _DAMMIT._

Rachel's face crimps up. "You're going to be _fine_, OK? I'm gonna be right here with you, OK?"

"Yeah, but _you_ don't have to - " And then she stops. Because yeah, Rachel doesn't have to push out a baby or get cut open or whatever the hell they're going to do, but she didn't exactly spend last summer at fucking Club Med. She hastily wipes a hand over her face. "Jesus, I'm sorry. It's OK. I'm fine."

"No, you're not," Rachel says easily, "but don't worry about it. And what the hell is all that?" She gestures toward the pile of squares on the table. "You turning into an old lady on me?"

"Maybe. It's not like I have tons of stuff to do in here."

"What about your MCAT stuff?"

"There's no way I'm going to be able to take it this year. It doesn't matter."

"What? Then what are you...?"

"I guess after undergrad I'm taking a year off." She doesn't mean it to sound so fucking miserable. Great. Her sister's been here what, 10 minutes and already Juliet's subjected her to every selfish, miserable emotion around? It's so much easier with Jack somehow; she can keep things more on the surface with him. And if they never talk about the real stuff, well, that has its own appeal to it too, she supposes.

Sort of the opposite of the way it used to be, Juliet realizes suddenly, thinking back to Rachel's awful visit to her dorm, the first time Jack had called himself her boyfriend.

"If you take a year off, aren't you afraid you'll never go back?"

"Rachel..."

"No, I'm just saying. I think it's a bad idea. I think you should act like you're going to your classes so you can stay in student housing, and just take incompletes for the semester and put all your extra energy into the MCATs."

"But then I'll have a semester of incompletes."

"And no one applying to med school has _ever_, in their entire lives, ever had _any_ extenuating circumstances they could easily prove?"

"Will you stop being so logical? I thought I was supposed to be the logical one."

"Yeah, well, maybe we've _both_ done a lot of changing the past couple years. And at least my changing didn't involve gaining thirty-something pounds."

"You may be my sister, but you're still a huge bitch."

Rachel grins widely. "I know."

* * *

Rachel hightails it out before Jack shows up with dinner, but she's back again the next morning right after Juliet's gotten out of the shower. Juliet eases down into bed, toweling off her hair, and Rachel's watching her a little too closely.

"Have you ever straightened your hair?" she asks suddenly.

"Not very well."

"You have a hair dryer?"

"I think the nurses have one somewhere."

"C'mon, let me do it for you."

She's about to protest when it hits her: Rachel misses doing hair. "OK."

* * *

She'd asked Jack (_told_ Jack?) to skip lunch today, and Rachel and Niall bring her spaghetti from some place that's not all that much better than hospital food, but still, it's them together and if it weren't for a million other Extremely Obvious Factors, it almost feels like the end of last summer. Niall gives her about 42 big hugs and they'd brought a huge stack of board games. Niall thumbs through her poetry books while she eats.

"Hey, did Rachel tell you?" he asks suddenly. "Akihiko's having a kid, too."

"What? No."

"Yeah, he met this girl after you left. He's crazy about her, too. Probably just plain crazy, but yeah. They're talking about moving to LA, actually."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Well, I'll let you know." Niall shrugs. "They dunno what they're having yet or anything, but maybe your kids could play together or something."

"Seriously, Julie, they're disgusting," Rachel puts in. "I need one of those little airplane barf bags whenever I see them together, he's always like rubbing her belly or something."

Sounds kind of nice, actually. Juliet feels a confused little pang in her heart, something blatantly empty like a gas tank leaving her alone on the side of a highway, and she starts looking down at the floor until Niall clears his throat. "Anyone for Scrabble?"

* * *

It's the last hour before visiting hours end, and Rachel's been here pretty much all day. They watched some TV after Scrabble, and Niall had left when Juliet started trying to teach Rachel how to crochet. Turns out Rachel's pretty much a lost cause for that, though, and Monopoly's not a game for two people. They play four rounds of checkers before Juliet gets cranky about not having chess.

"We could prank-call Jack."

"Keep going."

"Streak the nurse's station."

"I'd rather prank-call Jack."

"There's always..." Rachel makes a spooky noise. "...the Ouija board!"

"OK, I hate to break it to you, but A., we're not eight years old, and B., we're not in a hippie house drunk out of our minds."

"Nor are we stoned off our asses. However! We're in a hospital, and I thought it would like, like, super-fucked up hilarious."

Juliet gives Rachel a long, withering look. Yes, it was funny when she was drunk, high or a little kid. But seriously, she'd much rather read, or crochet, or watch more awful TV, or play yet another round of Scrabble.

"Come onnnn, I told Niall we'd play it in the hospital so I'd be all freaked out and he'd have to comfort me later." Rachel's face changes suddenly, like she's realizing she's maybe just given too much away, and Juliet's breath comes quickly and unevenly for a few moments.

"OK," she gets out, because she wants to know, and then she also doesn't.

Rachel slides off the chair, closes the door, sets up the board. Turns off one of the overhead lights. This is ridiculous. And even if it were real, which it's not, just... Forget it. This is dumb. The quicker they play the stupid game, the quicker Rachel leaves and she can go to sleep.

"How did we always used to start this?"

"This is your show, Rach. I'm just being dragged into it because I'm confined to a hospital bed against my will."

"Don't talk like that; it's gonna make it not work."

"Right, right. How many drugs are you on right now?"

Rachel gives her a death glare. "None, thank you. Oh, other than my fucking _cancer prescriptions."_

Juliet sighs. "Right."

"Fingers on."

Juliet obeys. For god's sakes, she wishes Jack would decide to drop in, ohhhh, like right now. She hadn't really brought up New Year's Day with him, and he'd apologized sort of vaguely for not making it for lunch that day, and then they'd just carried on as before. No big deal, right?

"Are there any spirits here tonight?" Rachel asks, perching on the edge of the bed and ignoring Juliet's eyeroll.

_YES_

"Good spirits or bad spirits?"

_YES NO_

"Rachel, you're not supposed to ask the questions that way."

"Good spirits?"

_YES_

"Bad spirits?"

_D-E-P-E-_

"Get a pen, would you?"

_"You _get a pen. I don't have a pen."

Rachel heaves an enormous sigh, lurches off the corner of the bed and disappears for a couple minutes. She comes back holding an entire handful of pens just to make a damn point. "I got pens."

"Great, maybe I can practice an emergency tracheotomy later."

"Sorry, spirits, my sister was being a huge ass."

"Likewise."

"OK, are there any bad spirits?"

_D-E-P-E-N-D-S-O-N-W-H-O-Y-O-U-A-S-K_

"Who would we ask?"

_B-R-O-T-H-E-R_

"We don't have a brother. ...Wait, your brother?"

_D-O-N-T-W-A-N-T-T-A-L-K-A-B-O-U-T_

"OK, sorry. Is there anything you want us to know?"

_S-E-C-O-N-D-T-I-M-E-A-R-O-U-N-D_

"What?"

No answer.

"OK, Rachel, are we done yet?"

"No, you ask something, maybe it'll like you better."'

"OK." Juliet rolls her eyes. "When will Rachel meet the love of her life," she asks in a flat, monotone voice. She's meant to be mocking her sister; this was their favorite question to ask when they were little. (Before Rachel started hating her, but this is probably not the time to think about that.)

And anyway, Rachel jerks the planchette, _hard_, before it has the chance to get going. "Oh, grow up, Julie."

"Says the 23-year-old who wanted to play this."

"When will _Juliet_ meet the love of her life?" Rachel sticks her tongue out at her sister.

_S-H-E-D-I-D_

"Rachel, quit it."

"I'm not doing it."

"And does he have hazel eyes?" Rachel asks in a babyish sing-song voice.

_YES_

"Quit it."

"And what's his naaaaame?"

_J-A-_

Juliet takes her hands away. "I'm serious, stop it!"

Rachel pats Juliet's shoulder mock-condescendingly. "Visiting hours are ending, little sis. I'll just leave you here with your hardened heart. See you tomorrow."

She tolls her eyes as Rachel kisses her forehead.

"Great hair today," Rachel tells her before she goes.

"Hey, aren't you taking this stuff with you?"

"I'll be back tomorrow, dummy."

"Don't threaten me with your presence."

When Juliet's alone again she looks down at that stupid board. The one overhead light's still off, and it's quiet, at least as quiet as it can get in a hospital, the nurses chattering down the hall and someone's too-loud TV. She looks around cautiously, puts her hands back down on the planchette.

"Mom?" she whispers.

The damn thing doesn't move at all. Just as she expected. "Son of a bitch," she mutters under her breath, and shoves the table out of the way so she can get ready for bed.

* * *

Her routine with Jack's been disrupted a good deal since Rachel showed up, although Niall leaves to get back to the part-time job he's got during the semester break. But for Monday they make lunch plans. (Plan: Juliet doesn't move; Jack brings food.)

Jack eyes the stack of games as he unloads lunch. "At least she's entertaining you."

"It's been... fun." Juliet frowns a little, shifts uncomfortably.

"You sure about that?"

"Mmm, yeah."

"We could play Scrabble after lunch if you want."

"Even if... even if you know you're gonna l-lose?"

"Are you...?"

She shifts again. Is it suddenly incredibly hot in here, or is it just her?

"Juliet, are you OK?"

"No, I'm fine. I just have this... really bad backache."

"Backache? Like what kind of backache?" Jack's stopped unpacking the food, suddenly leaning in a little too close to her.

"Um, I don't know?" He needs to calm down. How did he learn to be so intense like that all the time? It's making her nervous. And he's gonna drop dead at, like, 40 if he doesn't watch it with the stress. Her back spasms again though, right on cue, and somehow it's radiating along to the front, too. _Jesus_, that fucking hurts. "It just comes and goes."

"It just..." Jack blinks several times staring at her. "How often?"

"What? I don't know." God, she feels fucking irritable now, why does he keep staring at her? "Every few minutes." She lets out a long breath, trying to deal with the pain, and then - _oh. Ohhhh, shit. OK. OK, right, of course_ and he's staring at her, she's making a horrible face because this fucking _hurts_ and _every few minutes _and OK, maybe she's an idiot but she also can't quite remember how to breathe except he's taking her hand and her fingers are limp against his because she's not thinking about how to squeeze someone else's hand when everything else is going on and_ ow, ow, ow, OK, _she can do this, she can._  
_


	34. Empty Threats

**Happy 1/08! I'd always planned to have this be David's birthday... but I definitely hadn't planned on publishing that chapter *on* 1/08! Gotta love real-life coincidences.**

**And it's 2011, so... happy 20th birthday to an AU version of an imaginary character, I guess?  
**

* * *

_"You're gonna love this world_  
_if it's the last thing I do, _  
_the whole extravagant joke _  
_topped in bittersweet chocolate goo. _  
_For someone who ain't even here yet, _  
_look how much the world loves you."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Landing Gear"

* * *

It turns out that a lot of early labor just means waiting around. And, fine, it's not like she hasn't been waiting for two weeks, or almost nine months or whatever, waiting her whole life for something (anything) to happen, but all the same, it's not like birth would be on TV, people running around frantically or her screaming or Jack passing out from anxiety.

(And that's pretty much the last thing she needs right now, anyway.)

Instead, a nurse pages Dr. Burke, and it's her day off, but she's coming in, she'll be in as soon as possible, the nurse promises her, and yeah, the contractions definitely _hurt_, but when they stop, it's sort of like they had never even started.

Juliet tries to call Rachel, leaves a message on Steve and Joanna's answering machine. But Rachel had told Juliet she'd be by around four that afternoon, so it's not supposed to be a big deal if she doesn't get the message, right?

Right.

They move her from Antenatal to L&D, and Jack is clearly not weathering this as well as Juliet is right now, but he's at least trying to fake confidence, which she appreciates. But his eyes are jumpy, his breathing a little too fast, and he's confused that she just wants to sit around with the TV on and work on her crocheting, even though the nurses had told her she can walk the halls if she wants.

Somehow the two of them have managed to reverse the roles they'd played the night her water broke, but Juliet's oddly not scared right now, just taking this one moment at a time because she's gotten _this_ far, and David's going to be fine, he just _is_, and she's finally going to see him, to hold him, and she's actually just excited, even with a million things ahead of her right now, and it's all OK, it is.

Until another contraction arrives, this one slamming into her with the force of a city bus, and she sucks in her breath before letting out a strangled-sounding cry. It feels like her entire body is rebelling now, and she clutches the side of the bed, doubling over as far as she can.

Jack's next to her, right there, close but not too close. "It's OK, just breathe!" But his words are bumping into each other and she knows he's scared, and now suddenly she is too. Except it's not like she hasn't been breathing every fucking day since she was born, _ow ow ow,_ it's not like she's going to forget - "Juliet, _breathe!"_

OK so maybe she had forgotten after all, and she takes a big gulp of air, the muscles in her back tense and shaking, and ten or twenty seconds later, just like that, the contraction ends.

What the hell was _that?_

She drops her head back against the pillow, panting, and the pain hasn't quite managed to leave this time. Jack scoops up her crocheting from where it had fallen on the floor, puts it on the side table. "Are you OK?"

"That was... that was the worst one so far," she gets out lamely.

They'd put the IV back into her hand, and Jack strokes her fingers carefully because that's the side he's on. "It'll probably go faster if we do some walking," he tries.

Juliet really, really doesn't want to walk. She just fucking doesn't. She's scared of giving this her full attention, knows that once she does, that's it, that's going to be all she can focus on. She shakes her head, rolling onto her side, toward Jack. She closes her eyes and presses her head more firmly against the pillow. "No."

"But if - "

_"No. _Just be quiet," she mutters, and he obeys.

They keep on coming, all afternoon, and she keeps her eyes closed, mostly, curling up into herself and struggling through them, swatting at Jack once when he tries to take her hand. Whatever's on TV is starting to drive her crazy though, a stupid laugh track grating on her nerves like there's _anything_ fucking funny anywhere in the fucking _world_ when there's obviously _not_, not if the TV producers have to tell people what's so funny in the first place.

"Will you _please_ change the channel," she says through gritted teeth, wondering what time it is.

"To... to what?"

"Just start flipping." She winces, shaking a little. Where is the fucking _doctor?_ And she wants to ask what time it is, but then she sort of doesn't want to know, and she could also open her eyes and _look_, but no. Just no.

Jack changes channels slowly and she keeps her eyes shut, judging by sound alone. Commercial, commercial, end credits to something, commercial. What time is it, it must be the beginning of a new hour. Another sitcom, a Hollywood gossip show, commercial, someone screaming their head off.

"Leave it there."

"Juliet, this is 'The Shining." Jack sounds a little bit horrified.

Fucking perfect. "Just _leave_ it." The next contraction comes on and she sort of yells a little bit with the noise on-screen, the pain gripping her all around, and somehow the movie seems just right. When she finally opens her eyes, panting, she sees Jack watching her with alarm.

"I'm ready to walk," she manages.

* * *

Dr. Burke catches up with them in the hall who-even-knows-how-long later; Juliet's bent over and clutching the wall. "I thought I told you January 8," she admonishes Juliet cheerfully.

Juliet can't even manage a weak smile. One day too early, unless the baby takes until after midnight, and that's not something she's even willing to fucking _consider_ right now. "I need to sit down," she whimpers, and Dr. Burke immediately disappears, returning with a wheelchair. _Humiliating,_ she thinks, but she sits down heavily, hunched over. They get back to her room, the two of them helping Juliet into bed, and she squeezes back tears that are threatening from nothing and everything, and she wants her fucking sister.

"How often are they coming?" Dr. Burke asks gently.

"Every four minutes," Jack volunteers, gesturing to the little notepad he's holding. Juliet hadn't even noticed it until now. Every four minutes? How much longer is this going to take? She presses her face into the pillow, wondering where she can find an automatic weapon, and Jack reaches over, strokes her hair.

"OK." Dr. Burke leans in, trying to get Juliet to look at her. "Juliet, I can check you if you want, but I don't want to check too often. We don't want to introduce an infection when we're so close."

Juliet's simply going to find an automatic weapon, and everything will be OK again. "I want an epidural," she practically snarls.

"Then we'll check you now," Dr Burke replies smoothly, totally ignoring the fact that Juliet is fully prepared to kill them all.

* * *

Everything's OK again, and it's 4:45 and she's crocheting again like nothing's going on and her sister's not 45 minutes late. Because it just figures Rachel is late, Rachel has always operated on her own clock. And Juliet's not going to lie, the contractions are _there_, but it's like they're hiding under the covers or something.

Will it just stay like this all along? She can do this. She can totally do this. "The Shining" is still on, and Jack Nicholson is hacking at the door with his axe, and inside her David is kicking excitedly.

"I think the baby likes this movie."

Jack blinks in disbelief. "Please tell me you're kidding."

She shrugs. "He's kicking a lot."

"Maybe he's anxious about what's about to happen."

"Or maybe_ you're_ anxious about what's happening, and he's excited because he takes after me. And heeeeere's Johnny."

Jack's watching her like she's clinically insane. "You're really OK?"

"I'll have another 16 kids if it can just stay like this." As soon as it's out of her mouth though, she starts chastising herself silently. What a stupid thing to say. It's not like she's going to have more kids, really, is it? She's going to be... _old_... before she finishes her education, sorts out her life and tries to meet anyone. And then, what? She's going to start all over when David's practically grown? Or what if Jack thinks she's propositioning him or something? _Awwwkward._

"Do you need anything?"

Other than a way out of this awkward situation? Honestly, she wishes they'd let her eat, and she really wants her sister to arrive, but Jack can't exactly do anything about Wishes #2 or 3. "Where were you on New Year's Day?" she asks suddenly, not sure she'd ever been planning to ask him about that, until now. And there goes any hope of fulfilling Wish #1, the wish of Conclusion to Awkwardness.

"I... Juliet, I'm sorry."

"It's fine, Jack, just tell me."

Jack presses his lips together, looking down at the floor for a second. "I went to that party, and I drank a little bit too much. OK, a lot too much. I just wasn't in any shape the next day to... to..." He looks so goddamn guilty, like he's a puppy she caught wolfing down the Thanksgiving turkey.

"So why didn't you just call me?"

"You would have been... I just didn't want to let you down."

"But you - " she pauses as another contraction comes on, quietly, and she lets out a long, soft breath. Whoever invented the epidural should win the Nobel Prize in medicine. "But you could have just called me and been honest. It wouldn't have killed me to eat hospital food. Not that I minded your grandfather. He's a sweet guy, Jack. We had a good time together. But he shouldn't be doing your dirty work."

"I don't think of this as my d - "

"Poor choice of words," she cuts in gently. "But I know you're under a lot of pressure. From your parents, from me. And I think you're being too hard on yourself."

"You would have been angry," he insists.

"I probably would have been. But at least it would have been authentic, Jack. At least it would have been the truth."

He nods, but Juliet can see how he's struggling to understand. "I just don't want to be like my father."

"Then don't be." Is it really supposed to be that simple? _Can_ it be? They're both silent for a long moment, watching each other, trying to figure any of this out without speaking.

"Holy shit, you're in labor!" Rachel bursts out from the doorway, and Juliet snaps her head up, flashing on a smile. The whole speech she'd given on authenticity? Eh.

"About _time_ you finally showed up."

* * *

Whoever invented the epidural should be dragged into a back alley and shot. Her right foot's full of pins and needles, the sensations are _weird_, and her contractions have gone from four minutes apart up to six, and she's shaky and _itchy_, and the baby is going to take years to come out. Centuries, even.

Rachel's taken over notepad duty from Jack, who's finally gone to find something to eat, or maybe freak out in privacy, who knows. Do they even really _need_ a notepad? The baby is never coming out because a watched pot never boils, and the notepad's obviously cursed them all. Especially Juliet. Entirely Juliet. _Fuck_ that notepad; if they leave her alone with it, she's going to find a match and set it on fire.

It's after 7 now, and 'The Shining' is over, but 'Rosemary's Baby' is on, and Rachel doesn't say one word against Juliet's viewing choices. In fact, she actually giggles and pulls a camera out of her hippie-patchwork bag, snapping a picture of the TV. "For the baby book," she explains.

"Why the hell do you have a camera with you?"

"I've been carrying it with me the whole time I've been in L.A."

"For potential celebrity sightings?" Juliet asks icily. Not fucking likely.

"For the eventual arrival of the fruit of your loins."

"You can put the camera away now."

"Oh, come on, you're gonna want - " Rachel trails off as Juliet sucks in her breath.

"Son of a _bitch!"_ she hisses. The epidural is still working... right?

* * *

Eleven p.m. and Jack's back with her, Rachel's taking a break which sort of makes Juliet want to kick someone in the face, because _she_ doesn't get to take a break, but she knows Rachel's tired and Juliet's just _here_, gulping air like she's a goldfish out of the bowl, and supposedly she's nine centimeters and people keep coming in and out now, but that doesn't matter right now because all that matters is the way this fucking feels, and David is somewhere in this equation but where, she doesn't even know.

"Come on, it's OK, just count to five and it'll be over." Jack sounds way way _way_ too encouraging. Maybe he can be the one she kicks.

"It will _not_ be over," she bites out between gritted teeth.

"One..." he tries slowly, and she reaches out and actually hits him in the shoulder, as hard as she can right now. Which actually isn't very hard at all. And which he ignores, which is probably good. "Two..."

She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to slow down her breathing. Tries to imagine holding a tiny baby, _her_ baby, the one who's been with her all these months, and she's going to meet him soon but it's like she's known him this whole time anyway, right?

"Three..." And then there he is, a year old, in a high chair covered in sticky, green-veggie baby food, laughing. The windows are open and warm air blows through the apartment and he smacks his fist into the mess.

"Four..." David, four or five years old maybe, curled up against her on the couch, pajamas with frogs on them, reading before bed. The pain is dispersing, and she tries to wiggle her tingling foot as best she can. "Five," Jack says. He lets out a long breath in time with her. "Better?"

"Could you... could you come here, please? I mean... next to me? On the bed?"

Jack moves up, sits on the edge of the bed.

Juliet tries not to cry. "Just... I need..."

He understands, then, leans back against the raised bed, puts his arms around her, and she slumps against him as best she can, leaning her head on his shoulder. He starts petting his hand over her hair and she closes her eyes in sheer relief at the contact.

At least until the next one comes on, which is suddenly way way WAY too fucking soon, and she cries out a little. "Don't touch me - get - get a - _FUCK!"_ It doesn't let up this time, though, and neither does she, and if they turned down the epidural so she could feel enough to push, she's going to... who's she kidding, she can't even get out of this bed. "Get... get..." she gasps.

"I'll get the doctor," he finishes.

* * *

Jack's here and Rachel's here and Dr. Burke's here and a nurse is here, and maybe another nurse it's hard to tell oh and the neonatologist is here too, just in case, but none of them are really here, it's just her and there's supposed to be a baby soon, which is why she keeps pushing and _pushing_ and then she stops when a voice tells her to stop and it's probably Dr. Burke but it doesn't really matter, and _Dr. Burke, Dr. Burke, Dr. Burke, Dr. Burke_, why does that sound so funny, and she's going to be a doctor someday too but not _Dr. Burke, Dr. Burke, Dr. Burke,_ she's going to be Dr. _Carlson_ and she's not sure why she's almost laughing, or maybe she's crying, or maybe not, and Jack is holding her leg which is the weirdest thing ever, and the whole damn thing _hurts_ but then it somehow hurts less than being stuck in a bed with the pain.

At least she's _doing_ something about it, and _Amy's havin' her baby. _

_What?_

_Doc says she needs a __Cesarean__._

"Don't need a C-section," she somehow gets out.

"Juliet, you're doing fine, you're almost there," Jack tells her, looking right into her face.

"No," she whimpers.

"Come on, Julie, you're doing awesome," Rachel's saying now, like all she needs is a pep talk and this will all be over and _fuck_, the doctor's saying something about the baby's head and that must be what that feeling is and she screeches a little and everyone's making excited sounds because oh, the head's out.

"Just hold on, no pushing again until I tell you," Dr. Burke says, and Juliet is shaking hard now, her teeth chattering, and she's trying to figure out how to _not_ push. "Just hold on."

_You hold on. _

_I can't, I can't..._

_You hold on, I GOT you._

"Here we go! Here we go, come on, little push, here we go."

_David_, she thinks, but her voice isn't working, and there's a moment suspended in time where she doesn't quite focus on anything in the room and there's silence, it's too fucking quiet, but then a squawk and a whine and angry bleating crying, and the doctor drops a wriggling baby onto her chest, and oh, it's _her_ baby, it's _Juliet's _baby, her mouth opening in a wordless sob as her hands clamp around him. Someone's leaning over, oh, the neonatologist, and he's rubbing the baby with a blanket.

"12:01 a.m. on January 8," Dr. Burke announces. "You made it, all right."

Juliet would laugh if anything else could register in her mind right now, but David's _right here_, crying with his little gummy mouth open into an O, his eyes shut tight. He has just the finest haze of dark hair and a splotchy squashed-up face, arms wriggling angrily, legs bent at the knees and crossed at the ankles like he hasn't entirely figured out that he's got a lot more room now. His little fingers are splayed wide, and somehow she catches one hand for a split second before he pulls it out of her grasp.

She's crying and Jack's crying and even Rachel's crying, and she just holds David, looking and looking and looking, and she can't exactly _see_ right now, what with all those stupid tears in the way, but she can't stop looking, anyway.


	35. Observation

_"I look up to see who's different here,_  
_the latest me or the latest you."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Manhole"

* * *

Nothing's ever felt as good as this does right now, and she can almost ignore the way her body feels because she's holding her actual baby in this actual hospital room with her actual sister taking pictures, and she manages to feed him, proud that even early, David knows exactly what he's supposed to be doing. The whole thing floods her with a rush of hormones so intense she's fairly certain she could manage a tour de stade. But then finally (and she knows it's been too long but she couldn't any sooner, she just couldn't), she hands David over to Jack.

He looks almost mesmerized as he takes David for the first time, holding his elbow up awkwardly to support the baby's head. Juliet's arms suddenly feel uncomfortably empty, but she tries to focus on David's little face, the way he's sort of sucking on his lips in his sleep. Jack tucks the pink and blue and white blanket higher around David's shoulder, and the gesture is so gentle and so single-mindedly protective that Juliet has to stifle a sob.

And she _knows_ she's not supposed to be thinking about the fact that there was no father tucking a blanket around her the day she was born. Named Juliet maybe because her mother had a broken heart.

So what does Juliet have now? She has David, and other than that she doesn't exactly know, but it's not important right now.

Rachel's taking pictures of Jack holding the baby now, and then she moves back, gesturing she wants to take one of the three of them.

"No, I..." Juliet's fairly certain she looks like she's been living on a deserted island for weeks, and Rachel's probably taken twenty pictures of her with David as it is.

"You're gonna want these someday," Rachel warns, and Juliet knows her sister is right.

Jack sits gingerly on the edge of the bed, angling the baby back toward her. She takes him in her arms, suddenly nervous about dropping him, and he's so warm and solid even at only six pounds. Jack looks down at her for a moment, his eyes shining in the dimmed hospital-room lighting. Her heart feels like a lake swollen after a storm, full to the brim.

How was anyone ever supposed to tell her it was all going to feel like this?

David presses up against her, still asleep, his tiny hands balled into fists. Almost in unison, Juliet and Jack look up at Rachel, and she takes the picture.

* * *

Juliet comes back to reality for awhile, especially after her sister tells her she needs to head back to Steve and Joanna's to get some sleep. Juliet looks over at the clock, realizing it's after 1:30 in the morning, and she's never been so wired and so exhausted all at once.

"For the record, that placenta thing was really fucking disgusting."

"Well, no one told you to look."

"It was like, how could I even look_ away?" _Rachel fakes a shiver.

"You just wait 'til you have _your_ first kid, I'll mount your placenta on the wall."

Rachel freezes, her eyes sliding away. Is it just Juliet's imagination, or does a look of anguish pass over Rachel's face for a split-second? _Shit. _Does Rachel think...?

"Rach..."

Her sister blinks quickly. "I really need to get some sleep. You get some too, OK?" She leans over and hastily kisses Juliet on the forehead. Grabs her patchwork bag and her zip-up sweatshirt, and then she's gone.

And then a nurse comes in, wanting to bring David to the nursery for observation, and what with Rachel leaving, and now David being taken away, it's too much, and now she's shaking from exhaustion, biting her lip until she bursts out into a sob.

_"No, _I just, I'm - " Juliet tries to get out, but she just can't face this, she knows Rachel was exhausted but she needs her here, she needs her mother, everyone is trying to control everything and she's so sick of it all.

"Can you just give her a few more minutes?" Jack angrily demands.

The nurse looks from Juliet back to Jack. "Dr. Charles told me to bring him in for observation. It's standard procedure, when they're early," she tells him coolly.

Anger floods through her, anger that the nurse is automatically talking to Jack, and she struggles to get herself under control. "He was 36 weeks, and he's_ fine,"_ she bites out. Why hadn't she noticed until now how much everything _hurts_, and reality involves pain and other people and stupid fucking rules?

The nurse purses her lips. "I'm sorry, I don't make the policies in this hospital." She steps forward to take the baby, but Juliet tightens her arms around him.

_"No."_

Jack advances on them quickly, not threatening, but with determination set in his jaw. "You know what? The best thing for him is to stay right here," he says firmly, his eyes flashing dark. "If Dr. Charles thinks otherwise, you can send him in here to tell us that."

"Dr. Charles has finished his shift."

"Then you call him up and tell him that David is staying right here with his mother."

Juliet has to hide a sudden smile behind her hand.

The nurse leaves.

* * *

Juliet is pretty sure she's actually legally dead when she opens her eyes in the morning. David had woken at 4 a.m., and then again at 6, and through squinted eyes she spies Jack, asleep near the hospital bassinet, his head drooping heavily. Maybe that nurse knew what she'd been talking about: observation for David, a decent night's sleep for the parents.

Her arm snakes out from under the covers to find her water glass. Everything's somehow so still and quiet right now, even though she can hear voices out in the hallway, the whir of traffic under her window. She closes her eyes for a long moment, remembering listening to Niall's footsteps on the wooden floor over her head in Arizona, the loud parties down the road, Rachel's dog sighing in the living room, and when Juliet opens her eyes again, there's the pale green linoleum floor, the plain white walls, the IV in the back of her hand.

Suddenly she just really, really wants to take a shower and pull that IV out and get in a car _(her _car, oh yeah, she has a car now, sort of, doesn't she?) with David and retreat to the desert and make candles or something for a living.

From the bassinet David makes a snuffling nose, followed by a squawk before he starts crying in earnest. The sides of the bassinet are clear plastic and she can see his arms and legs curling in toward his chest with each bleating sob. Jack awakens with a jerk, taking in a deep breath and running a hand over his face before looking up at her and then back down at David. "Morning," he says warmly, but Juliet doesn't miss the way his arms tremble slightly as he reaches for the baby, lifting him up carefully but awkwardly all the same. "I, uh..."

Juliet reaches out but Jack doesn't step forward.

"I haven't changed a diaper yet." Jack looks embarrassed, somehow.

"OK?"

"I'm not sure I know what I'm supposed to do," he admits.

Juliet drops her head against the pillow, trying to suppress a giggle that wants to emerge. The words just fly out of her mouth like she's possessed by someone funnier, older, wiser. Only maybe she's starting to be, by now. "Didn't anyone ever teach you how to change a diaper?"

Jack looks down at David snuggled against his chest. The He's quieted down some, just from being held. Realization flits over Jack's face and he snaps his head up to look at her, a smile spreading across his features. "Let me guess: You're going to kneel next to me while wearing a nice dress and explain how to change it."

She smiles, more to herself than anything. That first night, changing that damn tire in all that steamy heat. "No. But maybe I'll explain it to you from here."

* * *

In late morning, one of the hospital volunteers brings in a big spray of purple flowers._ Congratulations. Love, Dad and Stephanie_, the card says. Juliet feels her mouth wobble; Rachel must have called him. Them. Whatever.

She's crumpling the card in her right hand when she hears the shuffle of footsteps at the door, and Margo and Christian Shephard are standing right there, looking just as uncertain as she feels right now. Jack had gone home to shower and get some sleep. Margo's holding white roses in a vase and Christian has a big, squashy-looking stuffed polar bear.

It occurs to her how awkward this whole thing must really be; she's been in the hospital two weeks and they'd only come by to drop off her purse? At the time she'd been happy that she hadn't had to see them, but... really? That was it, not another word until now? The same people who'd actually bought her a freaking _car_ as a Christmas gift?

Then again, it's not like they're her parents or anything. Not that parents have really worked out all that well for her, anyway, and somehow she summons a smile. "Hi," she says softly.

"Is this a good time?" Margo asks gently, but it's clear their attention's been diverted toward the bassinet near her bed.

Juliet nods, but they're hardly looking at her anymore. "Sure," she says instead.

They approach tentatively, like they could be sent away at any moment, and Juliet curls her toes under the covers, trying to weather the awkwardness. But they're just looking at the baby with expressions of wonder, and Juliet feels something like pride starting to swell inside her again.

"He's beautiful," Margo breathes out. "Can - can I...?"

"Yeah."

She lifts him out of the bassinet tenderly but expertly, not at all like the clear novices Juliet and Jack are. Margo tucks him against her body and David snuffles a little, not waking up but instinctively turning his head toward the crook of her elbow. Christian leans over and delicately touches the soft, smooth pink shell of the baby's ear, and David's hand raises up a little in reflex.

Christian looks up at Juliet for a moment. "Who do you think he looks like?"

"I can't really tell," she admits.

"Jack's hair, your lips," Margo declares, but all the same, Juliet's been thinking he has Rachel's nose, which means that he has their asshole absent biological father's nose.

"Long, delicate fingers," Christian murmurs, reaching out to touch the baby's hand. "Maybe another surgeon."

Juliet closes her eyes for a minute, an unwelcome shiver running through her. _God, I hope not._ When she opens her eyes again, they're both looking at her.

"And how are you feeling?" Margo asks, either sympathetically or totally fake-sympathetically, and Juliet can't really tell which. (She wishes desperately that Jack were here right now.) Margo goes on. "Jack said you were very brave."

She tries to smile that way, bravely, like this is all a role she can expertly play, brave young mother who's 100% happy she has this particular pair of visitors in her room not twelve hours after giving birth. "All right. Tired." _Sore as hell. Wanna guess where?_

Margo gazes down at the baby again. "Jack was breech," she says, her voice sounding almost far away, like she's gone back in time. "Very stubborn."

Juliet smiles. "Imagine that." It slips out before she means it to, and Christian laughs.

They don't stay too long but they don't leave too soon, if any of that can possibly make sense to Juliet, but they ask how he's been sleeping, eating, with Christian commenting on the baby's excellent reflexes _(Really?_ Juliet wants to ask).

Margo tells a story about the first time Jack slept through the night, how afraid she'd been when she'd jolted awake in the morning, until she rushed into his room to discover him still breathing. Christian holds the baby for awhile, more tenderly than Juliet would have figured, and when David starts to fuss, the Shephards exchange a glance and stand, Margo easing the baby back into Juliet's arms.

"Sounds like someone might be getting hungry. We'll leave you two on your own now." Margo sounds every bit polite and gracious.

Christian smiles and nods, placing the stuffed polar bear at the foot of Juliet's bed.

When she's sure they're alone again, she slips down one shoulder of her hospital gown, starts feeding David as best as she can. This entire thing just seems really, really, really weird. She's actually a food source for another human being now? He opens his eyes for the first time in hours, staring up at her, frowning a little. "Trust me, I don't get this any more than you do," she tells him, and David just sighs against her.

* * *

Probably the weirdest thing about all of this? Is that they're actually letting her and Jack leave the hospital. With. A. _Baby! _They're just letting them _leave_, with this _baby_, and that's it, they're on their own now, and good luck with sleepless nights and custody arrangements and kindergarten and homework and him hitting 16 and wanting to borrow the car on weekends. _Have fun, kiddos!_

This is absolutely fucking insane.

Rachel's taking pictures, Juliet in the stupid hospital-mandated wheelchair with David on the way out to the car, and Jack trailing after them like he's maybe or maybe not been invited to this party. At the car, the nurse smiles, taking Rachel's camera from her so Rachel can lean in with the rest of them for another picture. Something in Juliet's heart clenches a little, and she reaches out, laces her fingers with her sister's.

Rachel squeezes her hand.

The car seat is already strapped into the back of Jack's car. Juliet snuggles David a little tighter, glancing over at that tire, the front passenger-side one.

"Ready to go home?" Jack prompts, reaching for the baby.

_To the universe, _Juliet suddenly thinks, remembering that railroad bridge. _Here goes nothing._ (How desperate and hopeless and lonely that night was. She doesn't really feel any of those things right now.) She smiles. She _feels_ the smile, even. "Yes."


	36. Marked

_"Been so long since I've been held_,  
_really since I was his_  
_Probably just need to be held_,  
_that's probably all it is."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Recoil"

* * *

Middle of the night and she awakes to Jack's hand on her shoulder. Hears the baby crying before she's fully awake, can only feel the way the bed dips as Jack kneels forward, leans closer, and Juliet rolls onto her side, reaching out for the baby. She's getting better at this part, anyway, figuring out how to feed him while lying down. And Jack, well, it's not like he hasn't seen everything already, and she's too tired to be shy about it anymore.

That first afternoon after she'd gotten home from the hospital, Rachel had glanced from Juliet to Jack hesitantly. "So... how do we wanna do this?"

"...What?" Juliet had asked, still too wrapped up in the mere existence of her newborn to be paying much attention to anything else.

"Well... like... Jack, do you want me to stay here every other night and alternate with you or something?"

"Wait a second," Juliet had said slowly. She was on the couch, nursing the baby, and she raised her face to look at Jack. "I really don't need..."

"Well, Juliet, we're not just going to leave you on your own," Jack had said slowly, surprised. Confused. Maybe a little hurt.

"Really, I'll be fine."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Dumbass, you're still recovering, you think we're just gonna leave you with a baby?"

"Rachel, you need to take care of yourself right now."

"And I will. But I don't see why I can't help you guys. At least sometimes. I mean, I'm here, right?"

Juliet pretended to be inspecting David's fingernails for imaginary specks of dirt. Rachel obviously expected Jack would be staying over. And it was one thing to have her sister stay over, of course Juliet sort of wanted that, but... Jack too? If she hadn't ended up in the hospital for more than two weeks, there was no way he would have ended up this involved; there's no way she would have _let_ that happen. But it hadn't been so bad, had it? She'd needed him, depended on him, and the entire time (OK, New Year's Day excluded), he'd been there for her, helping her in ways that were not the sorts of grand gestures that would drive her crazy. Just normal, helpful, not-over-the-top things. Food from outside the hospital. All those books. Someone to talk to, someone to watch TV with. Someone to look forward to seeing. _(Shit.)_

She'd finally looked up, immediately struck by the hesitance in Jack's eyes. Not something she had often seen there, after all. "I'll sleep on the couch, of course," he said. "Just let me do this. At least until things settle down here."

Juliet had glanced back at her sister for a second, then back toward Jack. "OK," she'd said, like they were negotiating a truce.

Now Juliet's swimming up out of sleep, David's head on her arm, her eyes adjusting to the streetlight peeping in from the blinds. The baby's quieting down as he latches on, hungry and greedy, and she whimpers a little; it's not like David's really all that concerned with her comfort. Jack's still crouched on the bed next to her in the dark. "You all right?" he asks, concerned.

A shiver of exhaustion runs through her. "Just sore. What time is it?"

"A little after four."

She sighs a bit too heavily; wasn't she just up at 2:30? Or wait, 1:30? She can't remember. Maybe at 1:30 he woke up and she went back to sleep at 2:30? Jack wasn't there for that one; he must have slept through it, out on the couch. (This is worse than every finals week she's ever had, combined.) David's only ten days old and she's already not sure how much longer she's going to be able to do this. How did her mother do this? How is Juliet supposed to just...? "Bad night," she mumbles.

"He must be having a growth spurt." Trying to sound supportive.

Can a ten-day-old baby _have_ a growth spurt? Isn't his entire _existence_ a growth spurt right now? "I'm so fucking tired" and she's almost crying, or would be if she had the energy to.

Jack smooths her hair from her forehead. "We can give him formula, you know. If you need to. Formula takes longer to digest. Or you could pump. I could do some of the night feedings."

Maybe Jack should have had the baby; he'd be too stubborn to give in and use formula. She's so tired the concept doesn't even seem funny to her. They'd need to get a breast pump, and those things are expensive. "Maybe, I don't know. I just, it, I think..." What was she fucking thinking, having a baby? How is she supposed to start classes in a couple more weeks? _Weeks? _Is she _insane?_ But if she quits school...? Why hadn't she understood how this was going to_ be? _Three diapers in an hour tonight, how's that even_ possible?_ And he wants to be held all the time. ALL THE TIME. Jack helps as much as he can, and she still feels like the walking dead. Like a total failure. "I can't _do_ this." And now she maybe _is_ crying, because she doesn't think she's ever said that out loud before. Not in the hospital, not during labor, not all this very long, long week.

Jack lowers down onto the bed next to her, lying down on his side, curled toward her and the baby. "You're amazing, Juliet. I know you can do this." Almost as an afterthought, he moves closer to her, rests his cupped hand over the back of the baby's head, stroking the soft, fine hair. She can hear David sucking away contentedly. His tiny warm body snuggled up next to her, his fingers splayed wide, his hand over her arm. _Thank you for believing in me,_ she thinks to Jack. Almost says it. But can't. Too tired. Or something else. She doesn't know. She closes her eyes again.

* * *

Somehow she manages to wake up on her own in the morning; she's starving and thirsty and the baby is sound asleep, both arms thrown above his head. He's working his mouth in his sleep and Juliet wonders if he's going to want to eat soon, or he's just having a dream about eating. Do newborns dream, though? She doesn't know.

Jack would know.

Juliet creeps out to the front room, drinks a big glass of water. The plastic lining on the cereal box crackles a bit too loudly, but she's watching Jack sleeping on couch. Both arms thrown above his head._ Holy shit_, she thinks,_ what have I done? _And she's not sure if it's with a jolt of shock or despair or utter amusement. Her emotions are all crumpled up and twined like DNA, and nothing makes sense these days, and yet in another way, it all does.

Anyway, now she's sort of stuck. She can eat in here and risk waking Jack, or eat in bed and risk waking the baby. Jack it is, she decides, and eases down into a chair at the small, round table in the corner, squeezing her eyes shut for a second at the discomfort. Maybe she'll have time to take a shower before the baby wakes up. Jack snuffles a little in his sleep and she wonders why she's remembering waking him up in a tent. They never went camping together, did they? She's way too tired to figure that one out.

(Things are less confusing the nights Rachel stays over.)

She eats a banana, drinks another glass of water, then goes into the bathroom and turns on the shower. Getting undressed is another matter; she can't stand to see herself naked right now, feeling fat and deflated simultaneously, stretchmarks crossing under her navel, and she ducks under the water before she can see herself in the mirror, trying to swallow the recurring wave of panic that no one is ever, _ever_ going to want her again.

She feels ruined, somehow. Marked.

* * *

David's stretching and fretting by the time she gets back to the bedroom, and she shoves aside everything else that's swirling around her brain, cooing at him and laying him down on the changing table that Jack had assembled when she was in the hospital. He'd hung a long, low poster of Noah's ark animals on the wall behind the changing table, a mobile over the bassinet: a horse, a bunny, a bird, a dolphin. ("I love it," she'd told him, and meant it.)

She changes David's diaper, wipes pee off his back (at least it's _just_ pee this time, but even so, how does that _happen?_) and pulls a clean onesie over his head (he hates that, amping up the volume, turning his head to the side), tiny navy blue sweatpants. He kicks his legs and she has to catch his foot for the first sock, holding it firmly in her hand, and he doesn't like that either. The socks have tiny spaceships on them, ridiculously fucking cute. (She feels yet another piece of adulthood/parenthood worming its way into her brain.)

There's a glider in the corner now, and once David is changed, she settles down with him. And then David's just looking up at her; a complete blank slate, tabula rasa, and his blue eyes so open and trusting, and everything feels OK again.

Later Jack knocks softly on the door.

"Come in," she whispers. David's almost dropping off to sleep again, his eyelids heavy.

Jack's hair is tousled from sleep; she's still not used to his longer hair. "Morning. You hungry?"

She shakes her head. "Already ate."

Jack nods, hesitates before stepping further into the room. He looks down at the baby, and she sees something like sadness cross his face. "I have to meet with a professor around 11."

"That's fine." She's rubbing the palm of David's hand with her thumb, watching the way his fingers are slowly curling inward. "He's sleepy this morning."

Kneeling down in front of her, he reaches out to stroke the back of the baby's neck. "You're sure I can't get you anything?"

For some reason she wishes she could think of something. "Other than a full night's sleep, no." She looks at him now, tries to smile encouragingly. "Jack, we'll be fine. Rachel will be here later." David's head drops away, his mouth still hanging open a little, and she hastily pulls down her shirt. Awake and not on the verge of crying herself, she can at least attempt modesty. Poorly, but still.

"Have you thought about what you're going to do with your classes?"

"I really don't - I can't - I can't think about that now." She should never have moved into student housing. She'll be totally screwed if she doesn't at least start school this semester.

Jack's still kneeling in front of them. He touches her ankle. It's strange, in a good way. "Don't worry about it."

(Easier said than done.)

* * *

That's the day that Juliet gets a package in the mail: a long, narrow white cardboard box. The return address has Michelle Burke's name on it.

She glances over at David, asleep in the baby swing. Punctures the tape with a fingernail, drags it along the edge. Inside is the baby blanket they'd started working on together, blue and yellow and green squares, all finished, all the pieces together. Her work had disappeared in the chaos of the hospital. At the time, she's been a little disappointed, but hell, it wasn't like she didn't have a million other things going on.

_Sorry for stealing this,_ the note on top says._ I just hate to see a project go unfinished, and by now you have your hands full. Congratulations, and good luck this semester. _

_Best, Dr. M. Burke._

* * *

It takes her another week, classes already well underway, before Juliet puts David in the sling, ventures as far as the ground floor. At the lobby bulletin board, she sorts through the babysitting advertisements, ripping off phone numbers. David is sucking on his fist, his eyes closed. Rachel's cooking for them tonight: spaghetti and homemade tomato sauce, garlic bread and salad. They're going to attempt to watch a movie. She's already looking forward to it.

Across the lobby, a girl (woman?) with a toddler on her hip smiles at them.

_OK_, she thinks.

* * *

Halfway through "The Blue Lagoon" (which, by the way, is probably the stupidest movie Juliet has ever seen), David starts shrieking. Nothing is calming him down, and he just keeps crying, his face getting redder and redder as he draws his knees up toward his stomach. After an hour, Rachel is pacing right along with the two of them. "Maybe you should call Jack."

"What is Jack going to do?"

"He's a med student."

"He didn't even finish his pediatrics rotation."

Rachel rolls her eyes. "You're calling him."

Jack shows up in fifteen minutes, way too fast, and he's lucky he didn't get a ticket, but he looks good and freaked. He moves his hand over David's belly, rubbing in circles. "When was the last time you fed him?"

"About two hours ago."

"And he's not hungry again?"

"No."

"And you tried burping him again once he started crying?"

_No, I was out at the bar, trying to pick up a man with lousy taste. _"Of course I did."

"While he was on his stomach?"

"Yeah."

Jack takes over pacing with the baby for awhile. Juliet sits on the couch, staring at the floor and feeling somehow like she's failed. Rachel sneaks off to the kitchenette, starts washing dishes.

"Maybe..." Juliet begins.

"It's just gas," he says firmly.

"Maybe we should call your mother?"

Jack looks at her like she's just suggested they bring the baby to Vegas and try to solve the problem with booze and loose women. "What would she - "

"She's done this before."

He wants to argue, she can tell. But this is their baby they're talking about, and he's obviously in pain, and they have no fucking clue. He hands David to Juliet, dials the phone. Rachel glances over her shoulder and smirks at Juliet. Jack dials his parents' house, explains the situation. "No, we tried that... no, Juliet did that. Yeah. ...OK, hang on." He cups his hand over the receiver. "Lay him down on the couch."

She does what he tells her, and the baby just starts crying harder, screwing up his face.

Jack props the phone between his chin and his shoulder. "Move his legs around like he's riding a bicycle."

Juliet grabs the baby's feet, and it doesn't take long before he expels an absolutely horrifying noise.

"Oh my GOD," Rachel comments, leaning against the wall. "What the fuck _was_ that?"

Juliet's not sure whether to laugh or cringe, but she and Jack exchange looks of immense relief and then, that's it, they're laughing. Jack thanks Margo, hangs up. David is wriggling on the couch now, completely content again, and Jack scoops him up - he's been getting better at it lately - and covers his face with kisses. "That was pretty rude, baby," he says proudly, and looks over at Juliet again. "I'll go change him."

Rachel stands awkwardly by the kitchen entrance, still holding a dishtowel. "Maybe I should go."

"What? Why?"

"Jack... like, really wants to be with the baby. I'd feel bad kicking him off the couch 'cause you and I were trying to watch a shitty movie. You guys should be together tonight."

Part of her wants to protest, like her sister shouldn't be getting squeezed out of her apartment-slash-life just because Jack wants to spend time with David. But then there's another part of her that wants to let this happen, wants to let him stay because, _fuck_, David _is_ Jack's kid too. And... and...

Why does this entire thing have to be so damn complicated?

* * *

Middle of the night and she awakes to Jack's hand on her shoulder. Hears the baby crying before she's fully awake, can only feel the way the bed dips as Jack kneels forward, leans closer, and Juliet rolls onto her side, reaching out for the baby. "Mmph. I didn't hear him?"

"I had him out in the living room in the swing."

They lock eyes in the semi-dark of her bedroom for no good reason, then glance away. Jack stays with them again, like the other night. When David's finished, she reaches out a hand to Jack... who's now totally asleep on her bed. O...K. Juliet gets up, changes the baby, tucks him into the bassinet.

Now what?

It's not like she's going to sleep on the couch. So she slips back into bed, under the covers while he's still on top of them, a sort of Berlin Wall between them. She feels oddly self-conscious despite Jack's deep slow breaths, his tightly shut eyes, and she shifts onto her side, facing the other direction.

She's nearly asleep when Jack moves toward her, sliding an arm across her ribs. Juliet freezes, tense and totally awake again, listening for his breathing. He's still sleeping... right? But his arm is right where it always used to be, back when... when..., well, anyway, his fingers are curving between her side and the mattress, and it feels so good and so comforting (and wasn't that how she'd gotten into all this in the first place?).

She stops breathing for a few seconds. Forces herself to start again. Counts to five, just like Jack had her do when she was in labor. A slow count, releasing her breath slowly, in time with his. Gradually she relaxes.

They both wake up the next time David cries. Jack looks embarrassed, the hair on one side of his head squashed, his eyes darting away.

It doesn't happen again.

* * *

**Please, please leave a review! I could really use them right now.**


	37. It's Gonna Work

**Thanks so much for all your reviews last chapter!**

_

* * *

"What if no one's watching,_  
_What if when we're dead, we're just dead?"_

- Ani DiFranco, "What If No One's Watching"

* * *

The day Niall's supposed to leave to come pick up Rachel, the Flagstaff area is walloped with almost a foot of snow. Juliet sits on the couch with David, watching Rachel pace the room on the phone. She's trying not to listen, but all the same, if she really wanted to leave Rachel on her own, she could have just gone into the other room.

"You're going to kill yourself if - " Rachel is saying, then pauses for a long time. "...I swear to God, if... No, I'm _telling_ you, I'll call the hospital, it's not like they won't resched... _Goddammit_, will you stop with the macho - ...THANK you. Jesus fucking _Christ_, was that so difficult?" Rachel pauses again, laughs a little. "OK, see you later. Much later... Thanks... OK... OK... Me too... OK, bye."

Rachel finally hangs up and flops onto the couch next to them. "Give me the baby," she commands, and Juliet hands him over as requested. Rachel lifts him up, touching her nose to his. A month old already, holding up his own head. "David, promise me you will never be a macho dumbass who thinks he can drive through a foot of snow in a twenty-year-old truck."

David waves his arms a little, bumping her chin with his hand.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Rachel replies before looking over at Juliet. "Anyway, he's gonna wait 'til they plow. Which could be, like, two days for all we know."

Rachel's supposed to begin her next round of chemo in two days, and Juliet bites her lip thinking about what her sister's headed back to. "OK. Do you want me to call the hospital for you?"

"Nah, it's OK. I'll... I'll do it later." Something achingly sad passes across Rachel's face for a split second before she presses the baby against her, tucking his head under her chin. "Goddammit, I so don't want to go back there for that shit."

"I know," Juliet whispers.

"Here there's a cute baby, and decent weather." Rachel glances around Juliet's tiny apartment, the ivy plant that's clearly seen better days. At least she can keep her baby alive, if not the plant. "The accommodations are somewhat lacking, though."

"Also, that cute baby just spit up on you."

"Fuck."

* * *

Two a.m. in the haze of ongoing sleep deprivation: Juliet's with David in the glider when she hears Rachel mumbling from the living room. She waits for a few minutes, watching the baby's face and not entirely sure of what she's hearing. Is she supposed to go out there? It's just, as soon as she stands up, the baby's going to wake up again, stuck between the choices of Awful Sister and Uncaring Mom and College Student Who's Never Fucking Sleeping Again.

Finally she does stand, swaying with David, ignoring his whimper of protest.

The living room isn't quite dark, candles still burning on the coffee table; they'd lit them earlier in an attempt to eradicate Eau de Old Pizza and Horrible Diaper Incident. Rachel is all crammed up against one end of the sheet-draped couch, her knees drawn up almost to her chin. Muttering under her breath, something like, _but she fell_.

"Rach?" Juliet whispers, not sure whether her sister's awake or asleep or what.

Rachel inhales sharply. "I was asleep?" It's somehow a question.

"Yeah, with candles burning. Real safe."

"Mmph, shit, I'm sorry."

"That's OK." Juliet steps forward, blows them out. The smell of sulfur fills the room and David starts crying in earnest. _Shit. Didn't think that one through._ Juliet grabs the bouncy seat and carries the baby back into the bedroom. She puts the seat on the floor, straps him in, jiggling the seat a little. David blinks away a tear, looking amazed. "Keep that thought," she encourages him.

Back out in the living room, Rachel's stretched out on the couch.

"You OK?" Juliet whispers from the doorway.

"Yeah, I just... had that dream again."

"What dream?"

"You... you know the one I told you about? Where you, like... go away?"

Except Juliet's not the one going away. Rachel's the one who's scheduled to leave this time. "I remember," she whispers. Her bad shoulder throbs suddenly; she rubs her hand over it._  
_

"What if..." Rachel trails off, doesn't say anything else for a long time.

Juliet's always been the one comfortable with silences, but not this one. "What?" she finally asks.

"You know how... how you're dead in those dreams?"

Juliet actually feels her knees weaken now, the thought of leaving David behind; she digs her fingers into the door frame. "Yeah," she manages.

Rachel's got her arm pressed across her face, over her eyes. "I've had that dream ever since we were kids. What if... what if it's really _me_ who dies?"

"Did you... I mean... It's not like you ever really thought I was actually gonna die, did you?" She's speaking too fast all of a sudden, pierced with fear and she's not at all sure for whom.

"Well, no..." Rachel makes a sort of high-pitched sound that may or may not be a sob. "What do you think there is after we die?"

"I'm not a theologist."

"Wouldn't it be cool if we all got another go at it?"

"Like reincarnation?"

"I guess... but, like, not as different people. Because, what would be the point if you didn't even _know _it?"

"I don't think it works that way."

They're both silent for awhile, Juliet counting the ticks of the second hand, waiting for David to start crying.

"What if, what if I never have what you have?" Rachel says suddenly.

_What do I have,_ Juliet almost says before her eyes dart over to the tiny white shirt curled up on top of her Biology of Proteins textbook, the baby swing in the corner. She finally sits down on the end of the couch, next to her sister's feet. Gently, like this entire thing is a bomb that could detonate at any second. "Rachel, you're gonna have whatever you want." And for some reason in Juliet's mind, there's Rachel, her hair full and thick and past her shoulders, darting around a playground with a toddler.

"I just, I hate this, I want it to be over," Rachel bursts out. _"More_ fucking chemo, no guarantee it's gonna work _this_ time, either, and - and I think about Mom, and - just_..."_

(They usually never talk about this.)

Juliet slides her hand slowly over Rachel's foot, squeezing her eyes closed.

"I get why you kept him."

"...What?"

"You were scared of being left all alone."

Her eyes blink open. So dark in this room, but she's convinced Rachel's looking right at her. What's she supposed to say? "He's not - it wasn't -"

"It's OK. I mean, I get it."

"It's going to work," Juliet says fiercely, suddenly. "It's gonna work." She says it like she knows it's true, like because she's saying it, it will be true. _That's exactly what Jack would do._ In the next room, David starts crying again. "I - I have to - "

Rachel lets out a long, ragged sigh, sliding her arm back over her eyes. "Just go," she mutters.

* * *

The next day, their father calls the airline and buys Rachel a plane ticket back to Flagstaff.

Juliet drives Rachel to LAX in her Volvo, feeling very much like a suburban mom in her thirties.

* * *

She's actually sitting on her couch fucking _crying_ when Jack lets himself into her place; what the hell was she thinking, giving him a key? She jerks away from the door, flinging a hand over her face. "Jack - could you just - " _Go away,_ is how she wants to finish the sentence. Doesn't.

He practically flies over to her. "What's the matter? Is David OK?"

"David's fine; he's asleep."

"What is it?" He's sitting next to her, leaning in, looking way way way too concerned.

Where is she even supposed to begin with that? "I miss my sister?"

He looks confused. "Already?"

"I should _be_ there for her. And I'm, I'm just..." She shakes her head. "I have to get to class. You guys gonna be OK?"

"Juliet, you don't have to go to class if you're this upse-"

She hoists up her backpack, waiting. _Just go,_ Rachel had said.

Jack is watching her doubtfully. "If you want to take a nap..."

"I want to go to class."

He holds up his hands. "Go to class."

_Thank you for not trying to fix what can't be fixed, _she thinks.

* * *

**Late Spring 1991**

Sitting in the pew of a church? Not exactly something Juliet's used to. David is strangely quiet as the priest goes on about something she's not really paying attention to, sliding her eyes over to Jack. He gives her a reassuring smile.

On the other side of him, Ray and Margo and Christian pretend not to notice her looking. Juliet looks forward again, toward the priest and the pretty stained glass and the none-too-cheerful crucifix. Then down at her former roommate Penny's shoes, the champagne-colored slingbacks with the gold trim. Same damn shoes Juliet acquired the night David was conceived, she realizes suddenly. (How depressing that she hasn't had sex in an entire year. Not that she's supposed to be thinking about... _that_ in a church, though, right?)

She wishes she could say that she was coerced into this, getting David baptized, but she'd gone along with the whole thing a lot more willingly than she would have ever expected in the past.

Jack had called her on a night he wasn't staying over, wanting to know (yet again) if his parents could visit the baby that weekend. He still stayed over a fair amount of nights, but she and David had settled into a better schedule as he was able to go for slightly longer stretches between feedings.

"Jack, have I _ever_ said no?" Juliet had demanded, finally exasperated enough to say something about it. "If they want to see the baby, they can call _me_, you know."

"I've told them that," he said uncertainly.

She'd felt herself softening toward him. Again and again and again, they're up and down and who even knows where they stand, both working way too hard in school, on sleep schedules probably even weirder than they'll face as doctors. All she knew was that Jack was stuck between a rock and a hard place with her and his parents. Obviously Margo and Christian have everything to lose by giving Juliet a hard time about _any_thing, and they usually visited on Saturdays for a couple of hours, or maybe a weeknight now and then, bringing David a present more often than not. Painfully polite, all of them. Sometimes Jack would be there; sometimes not.

It was better when Ray came alone. If Jack wasn't around they would crochet together, or take the baby for a walk. But other than right before the trip to the DMV to sign the Volvo over to her, she and Jack didn't exactly talk a whole lot about whatever is or isn't going on with his parents.

Until that Saturday about a month ago. David had been incredibly cranky all night and all morning, and she'd been achingly close to calling the Shephards to cancel. She kept telling herself she'd call in five more minutes, until it was too late to call them before they left.

If the Shephards were any normal kind of parents, they'd look at the dark circles under her eyes, the fact that she was wearing a baggy UCLA T-shirt and faded sweatpants, and take the hint. Instead, Margo was cooing at the baby, Christian peeking over her shoulder, and Juliet had just stood in the middle of her living room wondering where the hell her own goddamn father was. _Either_ father, at that point. Rachel had said something about finding their biological father to demand bone marrow, but when Juliet had asked her about it recently, Rachel had evaded giving an answer.

Anyway, Jack showed up a couple minutes after, his parents already settled on the couch with the baby. Juliet was never sure whether she was supposed to sit with Margo and Christian, or leave them alone, and she was relieved to see Jack. Except right after he nodded at his parents, Margo and Christian had exchanged a look. "Did... ah... Jack, did you speak to Juliet yet about...?"

"Dad, Juliet looks pretty tired right now."

They'd looked over at her then; she was standing close to Jack, maybe too close, but if she could have stood directly behind him and _hidden_, she would have. Margo looked a little tongue-tied. "Well, first of all, maybe it would be more helpful if sometimes we took the baby for you? Just for a couple of hours. Give you a chance to rest."

"I..." _...think that sounds like both a wonderful and an absolutely fucking terrible idea at the same time._

Margo had fluttered a hand into the air. "You don't have to decide now, dear. Just something to consider. As for the other matter..." She'd paused, reaching down and stroking the baby's cheek. Big mistake, because he turned his head and started looking for a food source.

That at least gave them all a break; Juliet never nursed in front of Jack's parents, always bringing the baby to the glider in the bedroom. Jack knocked softly on the bedroom door a few minutes in. "It's me, can I come in?"

"Yeah."

He sat on the edge of the bed, near the glider. David was wiggling his feet contently. "My, uh... What they were trying to get at out there was, they wanted to know if you were going to have David baptized. They're Catholic, and..."

"Oh." This surprised her; his parents hadn't exactly struck her as the religious type, what with the alcoholism and enabling and all. Or were they somehow judging her for having an unfortunate, illegitimate child?

She'd flushed, looking down at the baby. It wasn't exactly like she bought into all that Wash Away Your Sins crap. He was a _baby_, for god's sake, how could he possibly have been born with a sin on him? Even the stupid so-called sins of his not-exactly-smart-that-drunken-night parents?

And of course, there's another part of her that wanted to complain about this not being the Shephards' concern, what she did with her baby. HER baby. OK, hers and Jack's, but still. "What do _you_ want?" she'd asked suddenly. Because, horror of horrors, she actually _would_ appreciate his thoughts on the matter.

Jack had shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm OK with whatever you want to do. Although a big part of me wants to tell them no."

"Why?"

"Well... let's just say that none of my reasons are very mature," he'd admitted.

Juliet's mind unspooled to Christmas night, unwrapping that box with the car keys inside. Worrying about the ways the Shephards could try to control her if she accepted that car. But it's not like baptizing David could hurt him any, right? It's not like she's going to end up sending him to Catholic school or anything because Margo and Christian wanted it... right? "Would a priest even do it? I mean..." How is she supposed to say this without it being awkward?

"Because we're not married? Or because you're not Catholic?"

"The first one, I guess. Or is the second one even an issue?"

Jack had shrugged. "They said it's OK. I guess they already checked."

"Oh." David finished eating, and Jack automatically went to the changing table, found a clean cloth, draped it over his shoulder. He lifted up David to burp him, rubbing his big hand over the baby's back. And again, Juliet had started thinking about what she hadn't had as a baby. What David does. And the fact that out in the living room, there were two people, even with all their flaws and their painfully clear attempts at winning her over, but _fuck_, at least they were _there_.

Now Ray squeezes her hand briefly as they bring the baby up to the baptismal font. He's acting as godfather; Juliet's friend Gemma as godmother - because, go figure, wild child Gemma is actually Catholic. They baptize the baby David Reid Carlson, Reid for her mother's maiden name, although when they get to the last name Juliet shifts her eyes away from everyone, even Gemma, feeling like she's betraying the Shephards even though it's not like David's last name is exactly breaking news to any of them.

The Shephards hold a party at the house after; Theresa and Laura are there, Juliet's friends from the old dorm. Matt and Stacy, her new neighbors she's become friendly with. A handful of Jack's friends, although there's only one she remembers from when she and Jack were actually together. A few of Margo and Christian's friends, and a couple of doctors from St. Sebastian's. Ray's lady friend Ella. (Juliet wonders if this is the one who'd taught him to crochet.) It's actually... kind of nice, in its own way.

"What, no booze at this thing?" Gemma plops down next to Juliet on the patio chairs.

"Jack's dad is a recovering alcoholic."

"Awesome," she says dryly.

"Yeah."

"Well, at least they're loaded."

"Wow, did I miss you last semester."

"Of course you did. I'm awesome."

And _there, _Juliet wishing she could combine Gemma and her sister into a single person. A single, snarky, healthy person who's sitting next to her right now. Not the pale, weak one she'd seen when she'd taken David out to Arizona over spring break. Scarf on her head again, missing two fingernails this time around. ("Hey, I take as many naps as the kid does right now," Rachel had pointed out. Juliet had cried in the bathroom.)

But she supposes these days, she's making her own family, her own friends, not like when Rachel had to be the one to invite Theresa and Laura to share dinner with them. Maybe Margo and Christian know what they're doing with their God after all, if it can bring everyone together for something like this.

But then she remembers that night in the hospital with the Ouija board, whispering to her imaginary mom, and that planchette not moving at all, and she remembers Rachel's dream again, and she hopes she didn't just bring David into a huge made-up story.

"Jack hid some champagne in the garage," she finally says, and Juliet and Gemma sneak off to be college kids for a few minutes.

* * *

**Thanks to eyeon for the baptism suggestion! Please forgive mistakes as I'm brutally tired right now. I'll probably republish this a million times like usual though.**


	38. Record

_"I think i'm done gunnin' to get closer_  
_to some imagined bliss._  
_I gotta knuckle down and just be OK with this._  
_i'm gonna knuckle down, just be OK with this._  
_'Course, that starstruck girl is already someone i miss."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Knuckle Down"

* * *

**Summer 1991**

Jack hasn't asked. Hasn't even mentioned it since that day in the baby store. But now that they're both apparently living in reality, Juliet's been wondering if she should bring it up.

She's watching them from her desk in the corner, her MCAT prep work spread out across the surface. The semester had ended with one incomplete, a B+ in Biology of Proteins and an A in Contemporary Poetry. Go figure. (Niall had expressed his approval over the phone.) Now she's saturating her brain with all this review for the MCATs, the course three days a week through July (the program labeled as "rigorous, demanding and thorough" because in the past, those had actually been good things to her). Physical Sciences review. Biological Sciences review. Verbal Reasoning and Writing. Workbooks. Essays. Group work.

And here Jack's sitting cross-legged on the floor, David on his tummy on a blanket. The baby's fascinated with everything these days, right now mesmerized that he's holding a sock, waving it in the air and babbling triumphantly. Juliet feels a little guilty right now wishing she could have had him even one year later.

Jack's laughing softly, she can see the way his face is crinkling up, but then he seems to sense her watching them. He looks over his shoulder. "Aren't you supposed to be studying?"

"ABLABABABA!"

"David's being really loud," she hedges. That must be it.

"Do you need help?"

She's taking Kaplan's review course because that's what Jack had taken. "No, I just need to get through this."

"Do you want me to take him out somewhere?"

Is this the 'in' she's looking for? "Jack, if you... if you wanted to take David for the night sometimes, I - that would be OK with me."

He smiles broadly, suddenly. He looks... _proud_, she realizes with surprise. "Yeah, I'd - I'd love to. Maybe we could work out some sort of schedule?"

What was it she'd thought once upon a time? That she'd made a really stupid fucking decision getting tangled up with Jack Shephard? "It's just, I have a lot of work to do right now and, and do you think..." How much is she going to miss David? Now she's feeling nervous even at the thought, but... a whole night without distractions? And all that_ sleep?_ "Maybe if we got one of those portable cribs today, maybe you could take him tonight?"

Jack's entire expression changes, opening and closing his mouth. "I... I, sure, I mean, we could - "

She flushes. "If you already have plans-"

"-I sort of did, but I can-" he says over her.

_Oh holy hell. _"No, no, it's fine," she stammers. "Maybe tomorrow." Does he have a _date?_ On a _Wednesday? _It's not like... it's not like they're _together_ or anything, and she's not really sure why her heart is beating so fast. He's totally free to do whatever he wants. Right? It's not like she's supposed to get angry or...

"I could definitely do tomorrow. I'm not working Friday, and..." Jack's got a lab job this summer. Injecting mice with... something. She'd been exhausted when he was telling her about it and she can't remember. What was she even thinking, trying to take the MCAT this year? Because Rachel told her to.

"Tomorrow would be great," Juliet tells him. _What the hell is wrong with you? _she asks herself.

* * *

It's very stressful, being a mother.

Her first night without David feels strange and lonely, like the entire shape of her night is wrong. She'd expected to do her work. Instead she keeps replaying the way David cried as Jack took him down the hall. Should she call Jack? No. No, they'll be all right. If something's wrong, he'll call... right?

Actually, maybe he wouldn't.

No, he would. He would. Right?

So she cooks dinner just for herself, cleans the kitchen. Calls Rachel, gets Niall instead. Washes the parquet floor of the living room, then goes looking for the books Jack had bought her while she was in the hospital. She'd only gotten to a couple of them, chooses Carrie off the stack and soaks in the bathtub for close to an hour.

But Juliet doesn't know what it is about that book, it feels almost like she's read it before but she can't even remember when. Or why she'd want to read it again. She sighs, dropping the book on the bathroom floor, and drains the tub.

As she dries off, she pauses, watching herself in the mirror. The stretchmarks aren't as obvious, but she's so clearly not back to normal yet (if ever?), slouchy skin on her stomach, not even into her old clothes. Just the ones she'd bought back in Flagstaff at around 12 weeks pregnant. And if Jack really did have a date last night, well, it was likely with a girl (woman?) who would still look good in a bikini.

Juliet throws the towel over the mirror, pulls on pajama pants and her UCLA T-shirt. _It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, it doesn't. I have David._

She hopes he's OK. That they're having fun, that David isn't wondering where she is. They've never been apart more than a couple of hours. (She can't believe she thought this would be a good idea.) Studying? How had she thought she'd be able to concentrate without David making noise somewhere? Ugh. But she has to pump anyway, so she might as well at least look at the MCAT stuff while she does it, right? And maybe after, she'll just leave Carrie on the table in the laundry room and see if anyone takes it. Too bad. She'd really wanted to enjoy that one.

Juliet spreads out her work on her desk again. How is it even possible that this would have been a normal night for her before David?

* * *

She hears the music as soon as she steps off the elevator the next morning, in the otherwise quiet of the hallway. Psychedelic-sounding drumbeats warped out and somehow too slow, and if it's a song she almost could recognize, but doesn't.

It's coming from Jack's apartment.

Confused, she knocks on the door, waits as footsteps approach. Jack swings open the door, David on his hip. The baby shrieks, reaching out his arms for her, wiggling excitedly, and her heart fucking swells that he's as excited to see her as she is to see him, taking his snuggly little body against hers. "I missed you so much, baby," Juliet whispers. After a moment, though, she looks up. Jack has a record player in the corner, a record spinning. David starts bouncing in her arms, chattering like a little squirrel. "What is this?"

Jack looks sheepish. "It's Come Together by the Beatles, but at a slower RPM. I put it on and the dial was turned down. Wait a second, let me start it over. I want to show you something."

"OK?" She follows him slowly, halfway. Jack lifts the needle, moves it back to the edge of the record - David stills in her arms before Jack sets it down again. She can recognize it now, the first notes, slow and stretched out and trippy. David starts moving again, wiggling, shaking his arms and arching back to try to look at the source of the music behind him. When he gets far back enough, he lets out a big belly laugh. "Oh my god! What're you doing? Are you laughing? Can you laugh for us?"

David giggles again, smacking her in the face with a flailing arm.

Jack grins. "You OK?"

She touches her face, smiling. "Yeah."

"Did he ever laugh before?"

"No." Is she supposed to be upset she missed this milestone? She's probably supposed to be upset. Except she's not, just glad she's seeing it now. Juliet turns the baby around so he's facing outward, bringing him closer to the record player, swaying with the music. David kicks his feet enthusiastically and Jack pokes at his toes as David laughs again. "He's dancing," she breathes.

Jack grins again, stepping closer to them both. "That's what I was thinking."

The moment seems suspended a little too long, David squirming between them, the two of them watching each other, smiling. "I... I should probably go. Was he... was everything OK?"

"He was... Yeah, he was fine. It was great having him. How was your night?"

"Aaababababa!"

"I missed him," Juliet admits. "The sleep was nice, though."

Jack nods. The next song starts. Weren't the Beatles on the verge of breaking up when they made this record?

She wonders what they're supposed to say now.

Jack shifts his weight to his other foot. "You... don't have to go, if..."

_Yes. Yes, I do. _"I have to, um, I have stuff to do, and..."

"Yeah. Uh, what are you doing on Tuesday?"

Her birthday. She hesitates. "Theresa and Laura were talking about taking me out, and Gemma, if, um, if you could watch David."

"Maybe... maybe I could take you out the midnight before? If we got a sitter?"

She's getting flustered now, David picking up on it and letting out a whine even as the music keeps playing.

"It's just - " he flashes a smile at her - "I'd like to buy you your first legal drink."

She wants to say yes. Everyone goes out at midnight for their 21st. It's just a fact. She's good at facts, right? Except... _The last time we got together for 'just a drink,' we created another human being. _"I... don't think that would be a good idea."

"Juliet, it's just a drink." He's getting defensive now. _Shit._ That's not what she wanted. But didn't he just have a date the other night? What the hell? Or maybe he didn't? Why wouldn't he have said what his plans were, then? Is she overthinking this? And why does _Jack_ have to be the first person to buy her her first legal drink? Why couldn't he let one of her friends do it? He doesn't have any claim to her.

"And you think we can get a sitter for midnight?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

"It's summer." He frowns.

"That it is."

"So?"

So what's she supposed to say? What does she _want_ to say? "All right."


	39. Chains and Gravel

_"For every lie I unlearn_  
_I learn something new."_

- Ani DiFranco, "My I.Q."

* * *

Juliet could almost pretend they're two totally different people sitting here under this high ceiling, all these white paper lanterns at five minutes after midnight. Friends, likely, or classmates or maybe colleagues. Not the parents of a five-month-old sleeping a couple of miles away, likely all bunched up in one corner of his crib, his butt sticking up in the air. It's a pretty place, though, this lounge he's taken her to. The floor-to-ceiling windows open to a balcony, palm leaves waving in a late-night breeze. Red Hot Chili Peppers playing on the sound system, but not too loud. It's a weeknight, after all.

She's wearing a hippie shirt Rachel had left behind, gauzy embroidered purple fabric. Something her sister had found in a secondhand shop, looking every bit like a leftover from the '70s. And so technically it's thirdhand by the time it's gotten to Juliet, but it's in good condition, flowy and pretty. Her hair's straightened and shiny, long enough to reach down to her ribs. Sure, she hadn't gotten as far as makeup, but still, she actually feels pretty, sitting here with her fingers wrapped around the stem of her oversized wine glass.

(When he'd picked her up, he'd told her she looked beautiful, and also that she doesn't know how to take a compliment.)

Jack, well, Jack doesn't look so bad himself, like he'd finally gotten a decent night's sleep, freshly shaved, and OK, fine, he looks great. He's wearing a dark blue polo shirt that shows off those biceps she'd been so fucking fond of, once upon a time - Juliet's been more used to seeing him in old T-shirts these days. And he's wearing cologne as well, something she can't recall him wearing any time in the recent past. Because why would he put on cologne just to go over to her apartment to change diapers?

"So, uh..." Jack interrupts himself to take a sip of his drink.

"We don't know what to talk about if we're not talking about the baby," Juliet offers bravely.

"That's... You could be onto something there," he admits, smiling, glancing down at his lap and rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. "Sorry I couldn't get over there before he went to bed."

She shakes her head. "Maybe you knew what you were doing. He was really cranky tonight." Except she still feels good tonight, so good. Like she's merely portraying a movie version of the way she'd like to be, happy and smiling and just... it's nice. A few minutes after midnight which means it's her birthday now.

"Oh, see, now you're just making me feel bad."

"Oh, see, now we're just talking about the baby again." She lowers her eyes for a minute, trying not to act so silly.

"True."

They lapse into silence again, long enough that it should be awkward. It's not, though. After all, she's spent more time with Jack in the past six months than anyone else. Well, anyone who's old enough to talk, anyway.

"How's the lab?" Maybe she can disguise the fact that she doesn't even remember what exactly he's injecting those mice with, and it seems to work. He starts telling her about this experimental treatment that's supposed to boost white blood counts in immunity-compromised mice, and how it's seemingly working on the majority of them, except for the pregnant ones. She can tell from the way that he talks about it that he's mildly frustrated he didn't get anything more challenging than this for the summer. And that they have no idea why it's not working on the pregnant mice, for that matter.

"But if the treatment's successful for the rest of them, it could have so many applications in treating a lot of different illnesses, right?" she prompts.

He looks chagrined, like he wants to say that's not the point at all, the point is him charging from point A to point B as quickly as possible, not serving as a lowly assistant for research that doesn't even fully work. Jack Shephard is not someone suited to slow, painstaking, thankless lab work. "It - yes," he finally admits.

Juliet has to smile a little at that. It's just so stereotypically Jack, that even when he's trying to do a good thing, it's never good enough for him. Maybe it's the type of thing that should still frustrate her. But all the same, she sees the way he is with David, tireless almost, and uncharacteristically patient, and maybe it's not the worst trait in the world to have.

"See, we can talk about things other than David," Jack offers, then immediately shakes his head at the paradox. They laugh. He runs his thumb over the edge of his glass. "So, uh... How am I doing?"

Juliet tilts her head, not really understanding. "How are you doing, what?"

He shrugs uncomfortably then, tilting his chin up slightly. For just a second, Juliet sees the stammering new dad who didn't know how to change a diaper. "With... with David."

She smiles and exhales, a silent laugh this time. "You want a progress report?"

Jack's shaking his head again, but clearly meaning yes. She can't tell if his smile is genuine or embarrassed.

"Jack," she says gently, waiting for him to meet her eyes. "I'm only going to say this once, so you better listen." If she were brave enough, or whatever, maybe something else, she'd reach across the table and touch the back of his hand. "You're a wonderful father. Far better than either one of us had, I'm guessing. David is really, really lucky to have you." _So am I,_ she almost says. "But you didn't need me to tell you that, did you?"

"I, uh." He shrugs, looking relieved. "I guess I needed to hear it." A shadow flashes over his face, and she quirks her head to the side in another silent question. "What are you so afraid of, Juliet?" he asks abruptly.

She shakes her head, still not understanding. Takes a long sip of wine. It's cool and crisp and she rolls it over her tongue while she waits for him to elaborate. (Funny thing is, no one had even checked her ID, anyway. They could have come here any time.)

"I never know what you're thinking."

She pauses, chewing on the inside of her lip. What's she supposed to say to that?

Jack chuckles a little, extending his hand to her. "Right there. You just... get this completely expressionless look on your face, and I don't know if I've done something awful or what."

"I don't like people to know what I'm thinking." She wonders if her voice is just that expressionless too.

He rolls his glass around in his hands, the ice cubes clinking. "Why not?"

_Because the kids in my high school were really terrible to me? Because I had to take care of my mother? Because I came back from Arizona and you'd fucked someone else? Even though it's not like that really matters anymore?_ "It's just easier."

He crinkles up his face. "How could it be easier?"

Juliet opens her mouth to respond, but she realizes he's got her there. It's easier to protect herself that way, sure. But what is it she really _needs_ to protect herself from, these days? "So you want me to tell you you're right?"

"Would that be such a bad thing?"

"Maybe."

"Why?"

Juliet looks up at the white paper lantern directly over their heads, swaying slightly in the open-air breeze. "Because it's something you always need so badly."

"You really think that?"

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. It seems so slippery when it's this straight. "Maybe because no one ever tells you that." She turns up the right corner of her mouth. "This is kind of a heavy conversation for midnight."

He smiles ruefully. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is. So when are we taking David to his first Dodgers game?"

It feels like he's giving her back something she wasn't sure she was missing. "I think he should probably be able to walk first."

He shakes his head. "Gotta start 'em young, that's all I'm saying. If we don't offer the right kind of parental guidance from the beginning..."

Juliet sees where he's going with this, faking a shudder. "He could end up a criminal. Or a Yankees fan."

Jack grimaces. "Exactly."

All things considered, it's a pretty decent night.

* * *

"Juliet, just breathe."

"I can't."

"Yes, you can."

"What did you get again?"

"Thirty-eight."

On the MCAT that's nearly inhuman. She's jigging her feet against the floor almost violently as she taps the eraser of her pencil in the margin. Her knees are practically getting coffee-table-edge burn. Today's Saturday, August 18. She has two more days. Just two days. "What if - "

"Do you want me to quiz you?"

"Yeah." Juliet essentially hits him in the chest with her workbook. She sits up straighter on the couch, like she's a little kid in the front row all over again, her hand flying in the air.

"Have you read the passage on the Mosaic Hypothesis recently?"

"Yeah." They both freeze when they hear a whimper and a sigh coming from the bedroom, but the baby doesn't make more noise after that, and they turn back toward each other.

"OK." Jack looks back down at the page. "The validity of the Mosaic Hypothesis could best be demonstrated in an organism by showing that... A, All embryonic cells have the same developmental potential. B, Interactions occur among all embryonic cells. C, the fate of all cells depends on external conditions... Or D, the fate of transplanted embryonic cells is independent of their new position in the embryo."

Juliet lets out a shaky breath. "That's sort of a trick question."

He's practically beaming at her. "Why?"

"I don't have to tell you why. It's a multiple-choice question."

"I could get you expelled for that sort of attitude."

She laughs, rolling her eyes. Why can _this_ just be so easy between them? "Liar. All right. A through C are all evidence for the Regulative Hypothesis."

"Why?"

"Because... Because if there's evidence that the fate of cells depends on their position, then... then it disproves the theory that it depends on restrictions in the number of genes the cell contains." Juliet takes a deep breath, closing her eyes. She can almost see the page in her mind, but then she can also mentally picture the laundry she was ignoring when she'd read it, all those tiny unmatched socks. "Cells can't acquire features based on their position unless they already have genes for them." She opens her eyes, waiting.

Jack leans grandly back against the couch, showily handing over the pen he's holding. "I'm awarding you the pen as a symbol of your greatness because you're too young for the Nobel just yet."

She laughs with relief this time, flopping back herself, letting her head fall back against the edge of the couch for just a second before she pops up again. She's had about three cups of coffee already today, and it's only noon. She doesn't even _like_ coffee. If she nurses David now he won't sleep again until fourth grade. "But what if - "

"No. You got it. Think about it, this isn't even going to be the hardest thing you've done this year. I _know_ you. You're gonna do great."

_I __know__ you. You're gonna do great._

She looks at him a little strangely, like he's told her this before, in a little yellow kitchen in a little yellow couch, but then... He hasn't, has he. It wasn't him. Juliet takes a deep breath, wondering if he's going to write her off as a lunatic. "Do you ever get the feeling..." She stops. No. He's going to think she's crazy. Or sleep-deprived. Or both. No.

(Maybe they weren't in the kitchen together. Maybe they were in the bathroom.)

Jack's watching her intently, his brow furrowed. "No, what were you going to say?"

"D-did we ever have a fight in the bathroom?"

"In the bathroom?"

"What I mean is, do you ever remember something that you don't actually remember happening?" _I needed you._

"When I brought you..." He swallows heavily, his eyes drifting away for a second. "Sometimes I think we don't get enough sleep."

"So we never had a fight in the bathroom?"

His eyes drift away again for a second. "No, I think we did. I was just coming out of the shower, and... you were angry about something?"

"Angry about what?" Juliet presses him. Remembering Prufrock. _That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all._

Jack shakes his head again. "I can't remember."

"Me neither," she murmurs.

"What ever it was you were angry about, Juliet, I'm sorry."

"Jack," she says gently, right as David starts to cry in the next room. "Whatever it was, it doesn't matter anymore."

* * *

Somehow by mid-afternoon, the table covered with books and two plates of grilled-cheese sandwich crusts, he persuades her that she needs a break, a real one (_but the MCAT is on MONDAY_, she wants to scream; doesn't). "You're about one more practice question away from a nervous breakdown," he points out, jiggling David on his knee.

"If you want to leave - "

"I don't want to leave," he says firmly, taking the book from her hands. He hands it to David, who immediately starts chewing on the edge. Jack would have gone ballistic if the situation were reversed; there's no way she would have been able to pry a school book away from him. "Just give me two hours. That's all I'm asking."

"Two hours," she repeats skeptically, giving him a dirty look and taking the book away from David. He looks like he's about to cry until she replaces it with his toy plane, which is quickly deemed acceptable for chewing.

"Maybe three."

"Do we hear four?"

Jack stands up with David on his hip, reaches out for her hand. She hesitates a second before offering it to him (and maybe they haven't touched in a long, long time) and he pulls her up like nothing's weird about it at all.

They end up at Mac Arthur Park, which she's heard of but never been to. Most of the ride there, she's thinking about how she at least should have brought her books to study during the drive, but once Jack's parking the car, she tries to let go of the thought. The lake is framed by a semi-circle of palm trees, the glass-fronted skyscrapers visible at the far edge on this blue-sky day. "There's a playground at the other side," Jack tells her.

David is mesmerized by the lake, slapping his feet in the water once Juliet takes off his shoes and Jack's holding him up in a standing position. With her own feet in the water and a breeze coming off the lake, she closes her eyes for a second and tries to figure out how or why it feels like she's barely taken a breath since January. Other, bigger kids are splashing and shouting, but even their noise seems to dim as she keeps her eyes shut and focuses on David babbling, trying not to think about the MCATs right now. And Rachel's blood tests have been coming back all right, and Jack... Jack... (What exactly are they doing?)

"You OK?" he asks her suddenly.

She opens her eyes, watching him standing in the water with David, framed against the palm trees. "Yeah."

When their feet start to go pruny, they bring David over to the playground. There's actually a single baby swing framed by regular swings, and after Juliet puts David in his swing, she flashes Jack a smile and sits in the swing to the right of the baby. He gets the idea all right, but he's more uncertain, his eyes darting around like someone's just waiting there to judge them for being immature or something. Eventually he sinks onto the other swing, Juliet still holding onto David's.

She digs her toes into the gravel, waiting for Jack. He reaches out for the other side of David's swing, wrapping his fingers around the chains and watching her like she's directing this play. "Ready?" she asks, and he nods.

They push off in unison, slowly, barely leaving the ground, keeping it easy for David, who clearly doesn't grasp the concept. He keeps moving his head back and forth between them. After a moment his mouth drops open in amazement, until finally, he laughs.


	40. Rock & Roll Lifestyle

_I see you and I'm so perplexed._  
_What was I thinking,_  
_what will I think of next,_  
_where can I hide?_

- Ani DiFranco, "Untouchable Face"

* * *

**Fall 1991**

Juliet's heart is pounding so hard she's not sure how exactly she manages to rip open the envelope. She's at the mailboxes in the lobby of her building, her left foot hooked around the bottom rung of the stroller. David's arching up, craning his neck to look at her over the back of his seat, babbling questions only he can understand, but he's nearly drowned out by the sound of the blood rushing in her ears.

"Here we go, kiddo," she tells him in a shaky voice before unfolding the paper. It takes her eyes a ridiculously long amount of time to focus on the numbers on the page. Shock rushes over her, then disbelief, then jubilation.

"Badabadabadabda!" David screeches.

Juliet tries to figure out how not to scream and jump up and down like she's six. "Exactly," she finally tells him.

Upstairs she doesn't know what to do with herself, sticking a Jane's Addiction tape into her stereo and changing David before she starts dancing around with him. It's his favorite game these days, and the barking dogs at the beginning of "Been Caught Stealing" always reduce him to fits of giggles.

_And she did it just like that. _  
_When she wants something,_  
_She don't wanna pay for it. _

Now she laughs right along with him, a perfect breeze coming through the windows and Juliet sort of feels like she could dance for about a year straight, even though maybe it's not the greatest thing in the world to encourage David's appreciation for a song about stealing.

_She walk right through the door. _  
_Walk right through the door._  
_Hey all right! If I get by, it's mine._  
_Mine all mine!_

Juliet hefts him up into the air, blowing raspberries on his stomach as the song ends, just like she always does, when all of a sudden she hears a soft smacking sound. She realizes he's clapping, for the first time, and she bursts out laughing. "You know, don't you?" she asks him. "You _know! _We're gonna be OK._"_

He beams proudly, and she's not sure why, back when she was still pregnant, she'd always envisioned him having dimples. He doesn't, but he's still pretty much the most perfect thing ever, and today is officially the best day ever, and that's that.

* * *

Juliet's going through the fridge, sorting out food to bring down to the courtyard barbecue grill when Jack comes in. She spins around, holding two ears of corn in her right hand and watching as Jack kneels down to pick up David, thus concluding his Take Everything Out of the Lower Cabinets endeavor. "Hey," he greets them both.

"Hi," she breathes, and she feels like she's practically gleaming here in this kitchen, like for just one second they're a suburban 1950s family with a swing set and a driveway just outside and Jack left his hat and briefcase at the door.

Jack is swinging David around on his hip, totally fixated on him, and Juliet tilts her head, watching the two of them and feeling the way her hair slides over the bare skin of her back. OK, so the humidity is unkind to her hair, which is huge right now, but it's ridiculously hot outside. And the wheezy air conditioner isn't as good as it could be, hence her skimpy attire right now. She'd lost the last of the baby weight finally, only to realize that by the time she could fit back into her old clothes, she hated them: khakis and plain shirts and boring boring boring; had she really _chosen_ those once upon a time? Had she really _been_ that once upon a time? Even what she'd been wearing the night she'd met Jack, black cotton dress with a neckline straight across, beige pumps. At eighteen, for god's sakes. But the hippie clothes Juliet had swiped from Rachel now and again weren't quite right either, so she'd managed to scrape together a little time and money after the MCATs to get together a wardrobe that wouldn't put her to sleep.

So now she's standing here in white shorts that are maybe too short, considering her height, and a flowy green spaghetti-strap top, and sure, she'd not sure why the hell she should ever bother wearing anything white with a baby in the house, but she looks good, she knows it, and she feels like she's fucking conquering the entire fucking world, like she might as well be strutting around in four-inch heels instead of barefoot on the linoleum of the kitchenette floor.

After a moment Jack seems to sense her watching them, and he shifts his attention to her. "You look really happy." Like it's making _him_ happy to merely notice that fact.

Juliet nods quickly, now suddenly not sure she even has the words.

Jack seems to sense the significance, maybe, because he puts David back onto the floor. David, of course, doesn't waste any time, crawling back over to the cabinet and grabbing a pot lid. "Did something happen?"

"Yeah - I..." Juliet turns, dropping the ears of corn and reaching for the paper on the counter, clutching it in her hand. "I got my MCAT results."

Jack grins. "And you look happy?" he prompts.

"I got a 40," she whispers, thrusting the paper out toward him, and she can feel the joy and disbelief creeping back into her face. Along with what she's sure is a completely dorky smile.

"You got a - ?" His jaw drops as he reaches for the paper, looking over her percentiles. "Juliet, this - "

"I know," she barely gets out, a little laugh at the end.

"This is amazing."

"I had a good teacher."

"Well, Kaplan is - "

"I didn't mean Kaplan," she interjects, but softly, touching him on the wrist for a second before pulling her hand away again. Jack blinks. Juliet glances down at the floor for a second, not sure what to say now.

Jack's shaking his head a little, and he steps forward right as she looks back up at him, and suddenly they're very very close, and she can smell him, he's wearing cologne again for some reason and he smells so so good, and this room is so hot and muggy but somehow she can feel the extra warmth coming off from him and it doesn't make her want to step away.

He starts to say something about how, no, she did it all on her own, but the next thing she's really aware of is his mouth on hers, the way_ she's_ the one backing _him_ up against the table. His hands are on her hips, his fingertips brushing against the waistband of her shorts in a way that makes her stomach pull in, and she slips her tongue into his mouth without thinking about it too much. Like they've been doing this, exactly this, the entire time, and nothing is uncommon or unexpected about it at all.

His fingers are against her bare skin now, his other hand creeping under her hair at the back of her neck, and she whimpers into his mouth even though she's not exactly sure what to do with her own hands right now and god, it's been an eternity since the last time she'd gotten laid, and she doesn't quite swallow her moan. He must like that, pressing closer to her, and he really does smell _so_ good, his cologne - but wait, why _is_ he wearing cologne? Was he going out after this? It's not like they're dating, it's not like he _owes_ her anything, like they have some sort of commitment, they're just friends, right?

And now reality is slamming into her like two tons of twisted metal. They're David's _parents_, and David... David's playing right at their _feet_, and if they mess this up what's it going to do to him? And there's no way in hell Juliet's going to even unknowingly compete with some other girl, _nuh uh, no way_, she doesn't need this, she's _not_ going to get her heart broken, but somehow she lets several mental deadlines pass, _just another second, __just a little longer,_ until Jack's hand starts to sneak its way up under her shirt and she pushes him away with a gasping shudder.

They're both breathing heavy, panting, and she brings a loose fist to her face, covering her mouth like they'd just done something forbidden. Jack's eyes are dark with lust or maybe confusion.

She holds up both her hands. "This was, this was a mistake, Jack, I'm sorry, I don't - "

"Juliet, I -"

She takes another tiny step back, grabbing onto the counter with her left hand, curling her fingers around the edge to steady herself. "Just because two people..." she begins, can't seem to finish.

Jack's got his teeth clamped together now, she can tell from the way his jaw is working. David clatters another pot to the floor. In her peripheral vision she can see the stupid ears of corn on the counter, the stupid package of hamburger buns. They were supposed to have a cookout. She's not even sure who kissed whom. Her hand finds its way to her mouth again.

"You're right, Juliet, it was a mistake."

She nods shakily, her bloodstream saturated with adrenaline like she's about to bolt instead of standing here stockstill like a rabbit. "Maybe, um, maybe..." She can look anywhere, absolutely anywhere, except at Jack.

"Maybe I should go," he finishes stonily, and she nods.

"You can take David on Sunday if you want."

"OK. I'll come by around ten."

"OK."

Jack leans down for a second, running his finger along the tip of David's nose, and then he's gone. Juliet stands in the kitchen and cries._ Fuck. FUCK._

* * *

Jack shows up around 10:45 Sunday morning and frankly, he looks like hell. Juliet's got her work spread out on the coffee table, trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to keep her graphing calculator out of David's hands. "Where have you been?" she bursts out angrily.

"Sorry, I, uh -" he runs a hand over his face - "I was running late."

"If you're too hungover - " She plucks the calculator out of David's hands again, and he whines.

"I'm not." Jack looks pissed now.

"I have a group meeting at noon and I need to get this done before then," she snaps. "I couldn't get it done any _earlier_ because I spent the entire weekend taking care of David while you did whatever the hell it was you did." Why the hell is she so _angry_ all of a sudden?

"Juliet, if you needed me to take him, all you had to do was say something."

David reaches for the calculator again._ "David!" _she barks. He looks startled and then bursts into tears.

Jack picks him up. "Don't yell at him! He doesn't know any better." He strokes the back of David's head. David whimpers, grabbing a handful of Jack's T-shirt and trying to stuff it in his mouth.

Juliet almost feels like crying too, watching them. She wishes she could teleport herself out of here, maybe just for an hour or two. "I'm sorry," she whispers. Has everything between them just officially gone to hell now? What were they doing before? What are they supposed to do now, exactly?

Jack's face softens. "I'm sorry too. Is his stuff ready to go?"

"Yeah, it's in the bedroom by the door."

He nods. "OK, thanks." He hesitates. "And yeah, I am kinda hungover."

For some reason she feels a little bit better just knowing it.

* * *

The semester's intense for both of them. Juliet hammers out a senior thesis proposal, and it's a research project so of course she's in the lab for far too many hours, living off coffee and vending-machine snacks just like a real live med student. In the meantime, there's med school applications. (And she doesn't even mention those to Jack, because what about the applications for Duke, Chicago, Ann Arbor, halfway and/or all the way across the country?)

Jack ends up with two rotations in a row down at UC-Irvine, and the commute's brutal, so he ends up crashing at the hospital pretty frequently. And when he doesn't, he's studying for Part II of the USMLE, and it would be Juliet's turn to quiz _him_ from a book except things just aren't like that right now, or anymore, or however that works.

They're both going broke paying for babysitters, or officially by now she _is_ broke, living off student loan money alone. And she can't imagine Jack's got all that much left in savings, which means the Shephards are at least partially funding their sexy rock-and-roll lifestyle.

So when Margo brings up the idea of her and Christian watching David from time to time, Juliet doesn't exactly know what to say. Margo doesn't smoke in the house anymore, that's pretty clear, and Christian's still sober, and...

Juliet's in the pool with David, and he's splashing and sputtering and giggling like he always does when they tip him back in the water. Jack's off to the side of the yard, grilling, and pretty much the only time they spend together these days is at his parents' house, keeping up a good front or whatever it is they think they're doing. (Christian's working. Allegedly.)

"What about the pool?" she finally says.

Margo's sitting on the edge wearing a tasteful white flowy cover-up, her tanned feet in the water. "What _about_ the pool?" she repeats.

"Once he learns to walk..."

"We won't let him out of our sight for a second," Margo says smoothly. David screeches again, splashing impatiently, and Juliet bobs him up and down in the water. Her eyes flit back over to Jack. It had been months since Margo had asked, and David's ten months old, and nothing's happened, and... "Don't you trust us?"

"It's not about not trusting you, I..." _Yes it is, and also I don't want you two messing with David's head the way you've messed with Jack's?_

"It's just, Jack said you've been spending _so_ much time in the lab lately - " Margo pauses to take a sip of her non-alcoholic strawberry daiquiri - "and don't you think David should be with family? Especially when we won't even get to see him at Christmas?"

"I'm spending Christmas with _my_ family this year."

"Yes, dear, of course, but... we live so close by and..." Margo trails off deliberately, pursing her lips sadly. "You know where Jack's getting the money to pay for all these sitters."

Juliet's getting a headache from all this well-meaning earnestness/manipulation. "Thursdays," she finally says. "I'm usually in the lab from two to six."

Margo breaks into a smile. Juliet tries.

* * *

**Winter 1991-92**

Diaper bag, toys, blankets. Clothes for David. Clothes for her. Thermometer. Baby Tylenol. Books for David (mainly for chewing/drooling). Books for her (she wishes). Her hiking boots, nearly decrepit by now. Very tiny, very new snow boots; down jackets for both of them (not exactly easy to find in L.A.). Hats, gloves, scarves. Bottles, formula, baby food, impossibly small rubber-tipped spoons. Bibs, washcloths. Enough teething rings for a small nation to gnaw on. Snacks for the drive. The portable folding crib from Jack's place. Christmas presents for David, Rachel, Niall... and her father and Stephanie.

Juliet runs down her lists multiple times, but who wouldn't be nervous about driving 500 miles alone with a baby? She's already fully prepared to turn it into a two-day drive if David pitches a fit, although right now he's pretty content using the edge of a suitcase to pull himself up into a standing position. Every time he does it her heart's in her throat, wondering if he's going to decide today's the day he walks. She almost doesn't want it, she's not ready to start letting go of her baby.

Rachel had called her back in November about all this. "Look, Dad and Stephanie want to come visit. For _Christmas_. I can NOT do this alone."

"What? You've always gotten along with him better than I have."

"That is so not true."

"OK, that's _not_ true, but you're still his favorite."

"That is _also_ not true, but I'm the one with cancer. Remission or not, I am to be pitied."

"Right, right, thanks for reminding me."

"Pleeeease do not leave me alone with them. Why does he have to decide to swoop in and be a hero _now? _And every time they make kissyface at each other I want to throw up on my shoes."

Juliet had sighed. Her father had visited only once since David was born, in early May. She hadn't seen him in ten months at that point, and he'd felt almost like a stranger to her. Or maybe she had felt like the stranger, a million times removed from the girl she'd been last time they'd seen each other in Arizona. "Can I say I'd rather not?"

"You can say it, but I'd totally do it if this were reversed. Maybe in another life _you_ can be dying and_ I'll_ have a kid out of wedlock."

"Rachel, don't say that. And two seconds ago you were in remission."

"OK, OK, sorry."

"I'll come," she relented - then immediately wondered what Jack would say.

He hadn't been happy at all about it. "And how's David going to feel when he realizes that his father wasn't even there on his first Christmas?"

"He's not even going to remember it. And he's a boy. Boys don't care about looking through family photos. I really need to be with my sister, Jack," she'd told him, politely but firmly. "Please." She'd stood her ground, gotten her way, and in the end, she was even able to forget she hadn't even really _wanted_ to go to Arizona for Christmas in the first place.

Stacy next door looks after David while Juliet loads up the car. She's on her third and final trip, closing the trunk when a silver Camry pulls up behind her, and Jack's slamming his door with so much force she almost jumps back. "Are you leaving now?" he blurts out by way of greeting.

Juliet nods, a little alarmed.

Jack steps closer, almost too fast. "Look, my father fell off the wagon last night and I really need to get out of here. I want to come with you."

What? But Margo had been taking care of David on Thursdays for two entire months now. Christian had _been_ there, even, the past few times. Everyone had looked so fucking _happy._ What exactly is he...? "Do you have clothes?"

"Yeah." Jack crosses his arms, his nostrils flaring. He looks like he's about to explode. She doesn't know what she wants to say, exactly. Leave it to Jack to show up two minutes before she's about to go on a 500-mile road trip, asking (demanding?) to be invited. "Juliet - I just, I need to be with David with now."

_But not with me. _What is she supposed to do, just leave him here? "Stacy has David upstairs. Let me go get him."

Jack's entire demeanor relaxes. "Thank you," he almost whispers.

_Please don't let this be a huge mistake, _she doesn't say.


	41. Out of Time

_"The desert seemed so promising, and then it paled somehow." _

- Ani DiFranco, "Educated Guess"

* * *

At Yucca Valley the mountains ease into the beginning of the desert. A good two hours away from L.A., and David's asleep in his car seat, an arm dangling over the edge. Juliet keeps her eyes on the road, of course, but she sneaks a peek now and then at the rear-facing carseat. Only a few more weeks, maybe, and they'll turn it around.

Jack's been mostly nervous energy since they left, fiddling with the radio, sorting through the tapes in the glove box, making sure the volume was low enough that it wouldn't disturb David once he'd dropped off to sleep. It's all her tapes in there, none of his, of course, but any road trip without Alice in Chains is a good road trip in her mind. If she had to guess solely based on her peripheral vision, she'd guess he's alphabetizing them. They listen to the NPR morning news, then the Brian Eno tape responsible for knocking her up (because sure, it was the tape's fault) and... awwwwkward, but it wasn't her choice, and she doesn't say anything. Then he pops in the newest REM tape, "Out of Time," and "Shiny Happy People" had been playing nonstop (i.e., infuriatingly) on the radio all summer, so he's decent enough to fast-forward through it. But the one Juliet always rewinds is "Country Feedback."

_This flower is scorched._  
_This film is on, on a maddening loop._  
_These clothes, these clothes don't fit us right._  
_I'm to blame._  
_It's all the same,_  
_It's all the same._

When Juliet was a little kid in Portland, Maine, back before they'd moved to Florida, she'd always imagined the desert as something smooth and blank. Sand and sky, two colors, two textures, that's it, like something out of "Lawrence of Arabia." She'd never seen it as exploding with texture, almost too much to take in, the rippled dirt, the brush varying endlessly across the landscape, Joshua trees, impossibly smooth tall rocks, tiny puffs of clouds, and all the _colors_, blues and yellows and golds and greens and browns. L.A. can be beautiful, of course, around the edges of the city, the freeways snaking in and out of the hills, but this just takes her breath away, every fucking time, and she wonders if someone like Jack who grew up out west can ever really grasp it.

If David grows up out here, will _he?_ (And if he grows up somewhere else... what about Jack?) All her med school applications are in now. Plenty in California, sure. Only Duke on the East Coast, but plenty others in the Midwest. Why hasn't he even asked her about it? And beautiful scenery or not, she can think of better things to do with her day than drive her sullen ex and her eleven-month-old through the Mojave.

_We've been through fake-a-breakdown,_  
_Self-hurt, plastics, collections,_  
_Self-help, self-pain, EST, psychics, fuck all.__  
_

Juliet's waited this entire time, driving in silence, figuring he needs time to think and eventually he'll say something. But it's been two hours and maybe what Jack really needs is for her to ask. She licks her lips, wondering where her Chapstick is in this car right now. "So what happened?" she finally says.

Jack traces the edge of the dashboard with his fingers. "I stopped by the house this morning because I needed to... I needed to borrow a pair of shoes."

_I was central._  
_I had control._  
_I lost my head._  
_I need this. I need this.  
_

This strikes her as strange (was he dressing up for something, did he have a date, can she ever JUST STOP fucking wondering about these things, when is she going to just stop feeling insecure about things that aren't supposed to matter?), but it's also supposed to be secondary at this point. That's what she tries to convince herself, anyway. "OK?"

"I didn't call first, I didn't think..." He shakes his head. "My mom was asleep on the couch, and I didn't think my dad was home, so I went upstairs and got the shoes. When I got back downstairs, I heard something in the sun room. My dad was trying to sneak in through the back door. He was... still pretty trashed."

"I'm sorry." Traffic's light; she sneaks a glance over at him. "Was he... did he drive himself home?"

_A paperweight, junk garage,_  
_Winter rain, a honey pot._  
_Crazy, all the lovers have been tagged._  
_A hotline, a wanted ad._  
_It's crazy what you could've had._  
_It's crazy what you could've had._

Jack shrugs. "Well, my mom woke up, and she was more angry that I hadn't called before coming over."

"I don't understand."

"Apparently my dad was drinking at home the night before. She knew about it. They had a fight and then he went out. He said it doesn't matter because he can _handle_ his drinking better now." Jack snorts. "_She_ said this wasn't my concern and that if I told you, I'd be ruining their relationship with David because you wouldn't let them see him anymore."

Juliet wishes she'd heard him wrong. "So they made the entire thing your fault." She chances another peek over at him, sees how his jaw is clenching. "I'm not sure who I'm angrier with, your father for doing that or your mother for trying to manipulate you. It's like she's taking his side."

"It doesn't matter how mad she gets at him, she always takes his side in the end." Jack shakes his head grimly.

"Do you know what set him off? I mean - why he started drinking? I thought they didn't keep alcohol in the house anymore."

"I don't really know. He had a big surgery on Tuesday that went really well. He was supposed to have some conference in Sydney next week that got canceled, but all that way for a conference?" Jack shakes his head. "It must be, what, a 16-hour flight?"

"I don't know."

"Well, anyway, it sounded pretty grueling to me. And he's been there before, so it's not like he was looking forward to a big sight-seeing thing. He's just..." Jack's voice cracks now. "He'd been sober for so long now. I really thought this was it." He presses a hand to his eyes.

She hesitates a long moment. "I thought maybe he'd stopped drinking because of David."

"Me, too. But even so..."

"What?"

"I kept thinking, why couldn't he have done that for _me?"_

"I don't know, Jack," she says softly. "I'm sorry that he didn't."

"And he said _I_ couldn't cut it," Jack mutters under his breath.

"I hope you don't still believe that."

He's quiet for a long time, fidgeting in the seat. She wonders how he's going to be when it's his turn to drive. And what he says next, well... It surprises her, is all. "You know, David is really lucky to have you for a mother."

"I... what do you mean?"

"He's always going to know that you stand behind him, no matter what. I can just see that, by watching you with him. You'll always accept him. Be there for him. I mean, I will too, I just... I hope he'll know that, some day."

Well, of _course_ she'll always be there for him. She's David's mother. That's what parents do. Or, what they're supposed to do. Not that she or Jack had exactly the best role models for that. And of course, mothers also aren't supposed to move their kids one or two or three thousand miles away from their fathers to go to medical school, thereby _preventing_ said fathers from being there for their kids. _Focus, Juliet._ "I... I guess I didn't know it was possible to love anybody so much, before him." Immediately she thinks how impossibly cheesy that must sound.

But out of the corner of her eye, she sees Jack smile. "That's all any kid could ever want," he says. "Trust me."

"I don't know. I really wanted a chemistry set." She cracks a grin right as David starts to whimper in the back.

* * *

After that, David's awake and demanding. They stop for lunch, then twice more; take turns sitting in back with him, playing with him, singing him songs, handing him toys. Jack plays "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," David's current favorite song, at top volume, and they can't help but laugh at the fact that he's never seemed to prefer an age-appropriate song yet. But around 4, they have to concede there's no way they're getting to Mountainaire tonight.

Juliet had brought David to Arizona once before, but then they'd had the luxury of flying. Now, in the backseat, she shuffles through her notes, finds the instructions from Rachel. "She said to stay in Needles if I... if we had to. Exit 141."

"That doesn't sound very pleasant."

"Try to think of it like pine needles."

"Did you - she doesn't know I'm coming, does she?" Jack's craning his neck, looking for mile markers.

Juliet pauses. How bearable and/or uncomfortable is this all going to be? "I guess I should have called her when I went back upstairs."

"You can call her from the motel."

David is clearly relieved to have freedom from the confines of his prison/carseat, zooming around the motel room carpet on all fours. Juliet's trying not to think about whatever might be on that carpet. Also something she's not trying to think about right now: The fact that they only got one room. The truth is, she'd sort of _wanted_ it that way, never having stayed in a motel by herself before, and they have one with two beds. Jack unfolds the portable crib between the beds even though it's only mid-afternoon, but she knows how he likes (needs) to have everything settled.

They flip through the limited channels on TV, watching the end of "Airplane!" while trading off tumbling around with David. Jack holds him high over his head, thundering around the room, and David shrieks with laughter. It's probably good they had a boy, she thinks suddenly.

The afternoon local news comes on (lead story something close to: It's the Still the Desert; Nothing Happened). David use all the low motel-room furniture to pull himself up to standing. _Please please don't walk yet. _

Dinner's at a chain restaurant down the street, Friendly's or Shoney's or whatever, she can't even remember once they're inside. "We need to fortify ourselves," she instructs him. "Once we're at Rachel's, it's all lentils and sprouts. I need bacon, and it's now or never." Jack orders a cheeseburger, grinning at her, and she thinks of that hospital cheeseburger. Juliet orders a turkey club, and when it arrives topped with frilly toothpicks, for some reason she feels like laughing.

Later, as they're drifting to sleep in their separate beds, the crib between them, Juliet remembers she never called Rachel. She opens her eyes in the darkness and sees, through the mesh walls of the crib like it's bars of a cage, that Jack is maybe or maybe not watching her.

It's so quiet here in this pitch-black room, no bird songs or tree frogs or twitching tree branches, she thinks somehow, impossibly.

_(Break a branch off that aloe plant.)_

_(It's OK.)_

_(Please. Please.)_

She's suddenly overcome with emotions, kinds she can't even identify. But what else is new? She closes her eyes again.

* * *

Day two is much shorter, which is good because David pitches a fit the instant they strap him back into his car seat. Juliet can't even fathom having attempted this trip without Jack. They stop once the car starts to climb into the mountains, pulling on sweaters, bundling up David despite the fact that the dashboard heater works perfectly well.

Juliet is nervous, somehow, as the car crunches over the pine needles on Rachel's road. It's just, somehow this place has begun to feel like home to her, but it's a home she's never shown Jack before. This makes her feel vulnerable in a strange new way.

"So this is - this is where you lived when you were first pregnant?"

"Yeah."

Jack nods, clutching at the armrest. "And you only ate pancakes for weeks."

"Well, you got your stories down, at least."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there."

"They had a going-away party for me," she offers, like that's supposed to explain everything.

Juliet parks in the driveway. It's been seven months since she's been here, and the dark-brown A-frame looks just the same, except now it's surrounded by freshly fallen snow. A lawnmower is tucked at the corner of the house despite the fact that they probably should have put it away at least two months ago.

Jack stops her at David's door, holding out her winter hat. "Here." At first she's expecting it to just hand it to her, but instead he reaches out, smoothing her hair away from her face with both hands, and her breath catches in her throat as he tugs the hat over her head. She raises her eyes up to meet his, her heart giving that same little stupid flutter she's been trying to train it against.

"Thanks," she whispers. Her voice comes out strange.

He swallows heavily. "Sure."

* * *

Rachel's face fills with joy when she answers the door, but David plays shy, burying his face into Juliet's neck. "I think he forgot about me," Rachel exclaims, somewhat dismayed, and then jerks her head up, her eyes widening when she sees Jack stepping up behind Juliet. "Uh... hey!"

Jack grins sheepishly. "Hi, Rachel. I'm sorry, I guess Juliet didn't warn you."

Rachel gives Juliet a sideward glance. "Nope, she didn't." She smirks, then mutters under her breath, "Well, this should be interesting." She raises her voice. "Dad and Stephanie got in this morning. They're at a hotel up in Flag."

Niall appears behind her. "Well, hey there! Rach, are you letting in our latest guests or not?"

She rolls her eyes and steps back. Niall ducks forward and half-lifts Juliet into a hug - "Jules, hey! He's gotten so _big!_" - not so easy when David's still in her arms. She doesn't miss the look Jack gives them, although she can't quite interpret it, either.

Juliet leaves a wary David under Rachel's care while they begin hauling in stuff from the car.

"So I dunno what's going on between you two -" Niall begins in a low voice, jerking his head back toward Jack, who's closer to the house right now than the two of them - "but my friend Cindy, the flight attendant? She was supposed to fly home through Chicago and they're snowed in there. Or snowed out, however that works. So I invited her to spend Christmas here, and I hope you understand, but she's got the couch. Duncan's here but P.J.'s gone, so you were getting your old room back. And, uh, we just weren't expecting, well, other guests."

Juliet wonders if her smile is anywhere near brave. "Oh. Well... that's OK."_ Fuck you, universe._

Niall's face splits into a grin. "Oh, _is_ it, now?"

* * *

Dad and Stephanie come over for dinner that night, right as Juliet and Niall return from the video store with the Peanuts Christmas special and "Santa Claus: The Movie," a delightful tale about Santa's origins and the way he manages to hang with a homeless kid one Christmas Eve and then ignore him for the entire following year.

The four of them meet in the gravel driveway, exchanging awkward(?) hugs through bulky down jackets, and Stephanie takes off her left glove to show Juliet her new wedding ring before leading the way back into the house. David crawls straight to the door, such a fast crawler he could probably medal in it by now, and she scoops him up and turns around to face her dad.

"Well, he's gotten big!"

"Oh, Julie, he's so cute!" Stephanie offers, reaching out for him. To her dismay, David spins around and buries his face in Juliet's neck again.

"I'm sorry, he's really shy these days." Somehow she feels like this is her own fault anyway.

Jack's come up behind them, and Niall's skirted around to put the videos on the counter. Rachel and Flight Attendant Cindy wave from the corner of the kitchen area, but they'd already seen them this morning. "Mr. Carlson, Mrs. Carlson, hi, it's good to see you again." He extends a hand to Stephanie, who shakes it immediately, then to Juliet's dad, who clenches his jaw and makes him sweat before finally reaching out.

"Well, I certainly didn't expect to see _you_ here," her father says.

_"Dad."_

"Julie, I have to call them like I see them. Like when Rachel had taken up with that - what was his name again? Bob?" He calls over to Rachel, who busies herself at the dining table. "Bob," he assures himself, turning back to face them.

"Mr. Carlson, I'm here," Jack begins bravely, "because I wanted to spend Christmas with my son and with Juliet."

"Dinner's ready!" Rachel blurts out, half hidden behind the way-too-big tree in the corner of the room.

"Not badly enough that you were willing to marry her, though," he challenges, and this is definitely the point that Juliet decides they should have just gone to Tahiti for Christmas.

Except: "Gerry," Stephanie interjects softly, laying a hand on his arm. But there's something underneath, something forceful, and she doesn't need to say anything else. That was good. Huh. Juliet mentally files that one away.

Of course, Dad's still glaring at Jack, and the poor guy actually looks pretty tongue-tied now. Weren't they supposed to have a nice hippie dinner and watch a Christmas movie with the baby? Tomorrow's Christmas Eve. "Dad, Jack did ask me. I said no. Let's eat."

* * *

She can't bring herself to look at her father, or Stephanie, or Jack for the entire meal. During the movie she sits with David and Rachel on one end of the couch, and when she rests her head against her sister's shoulder, Rachel doesn't move away. Xerxes, Rachel's dog, keeps his head on her feet. Finally David's eyes start to droop, but Juliet doesn't move, just stays there with the baby sleeping on her chest and this is all she needs anyway.

Dad and Stephanie leave, and Juliet's still on the couch with the baby. Cindy and Niall and Rachel are making themselves busy.

"I can take care of him tonight, if you need some time to yourself," Jack offers. She realizes he's holding her Stephen King book. "Trade you?"

"Thanks." She eases David up slightly, and Jack kneels forward, one knee on the couch, and shifts David into his arms. "You, ah... you didn't have to say... what you said, earlier."

Juliet shrugs, but she feels a million times better, all the same. "It doesn't really matter."

He stands with David, who moves a little but doesn't really wake up, one arm thrown over his head. Jack nods, and then he disappears down the hall.

* * *

Later Juliet finds her sister perched out on the edge of the low rock wall in the back of the house. "It's freezing out here."

Rachel holds up a joint, doesn't speak.

"Ah." Juliet zips up her jacket the rest of the way, sits next to her sister.

"So, _did_ he ask you to marry him?"

"No," she admits, reaching for the joint. She'll take a shower, wash away the smoke smell before she goes to bed. "But I would've said no anyway."

"OK." They sit for awhile, passing the joint back and forth between them, listening to the occasional car whir down the road. The moon's glistening on the snow and it's probably the weed, but everything seems ridiculously serene. "So, um," Rachel finally says. "I found out some stuff."

"About...?" Juliet prompts. Her face twitches as she tries to focus on the patterns of the snow at her feet. She hasn't smoked in close to two years, and this stuff is _strong._

"About our, um, our real father." Rachel takes an impressively huge toke. "Remember... remember how I said I was afraid of him?"

"Yeah." Her voice is so, so quiet.

"Well, I guess it doesn't matter, 'cause he's dead," Rachel announces bitterly. She offers the join to Juliet, who holds it for far too long, staring at the glowing tip as it eventually goes out.

"What... what happened?" What was it they'd lost, exactly?

"Car accident, about eight years ago."

"Oh." That would have put it right around the time of their mother's diagnosis.

"Here's the thing, though. He was married, when it happened? And they had a kid."

"What?"

"Yeah. So, we have a sister. They live in Orange County. California. I found out a few months ago, but I was afraid you'd go without me, so..." Rachel shrugs. "She's about fourteen, I think."

Another sister. Juliet can't remember how to breathe for a second. "You haven't talked to her? To... to them?"

"Uh-uh. I thought maybe after the holidays I could ride back with you and Jack. And you and I could go together." Rachel digs her lighter from the pocket of her jacket, sparks up the joint again. "Shitty rolling papers. Don't let it go out again this time, OK? Here."

She takes just a tiny puff this time, and her head is spinning but she's not sure whether it's from the weed or this news or the fact that she'll be sharing a bed with Jack for the next two weeks. "I... Do you think they know about us?"

"No idea."

"What is it you want from this?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Julie."

"I... I think I'm gonna go to bed now."

Rachel has to give her a little shove to help her get off the wall, and she staggers inside, takes a shower, pulls on sweatpants and a long T-shirt. Jack's asleep already, in her old bed from two summers ago now, except he's on her side. Except it really isn't her side anymore, anyway, and she slips into bed and turns around so they're back to back, facing away from each other like magnets with opposite charges.


	42. Age of Anxiety, Drop Dead

_"You are a miracle but that is not all._  
_You are also a stiff drink and I am on call._  
_You are a party and I am a school night_  
_and I'm lookin' for my door key_  
_but you are my porch light."_

- Ani DiFranco, "School Night"

* * *

For a second before Juliet opens her eyes, she can't remember where she is. Then she remembers, and she's seized by a momentary wave of panic before she comes back to the present: This is not then, she's not pregnant and alone, Rachel's not sick anymore.

It's just that she's in the same room. Same bed. Wrong side.

Without thinking about it too much, she rolls over and finds Jack awake far on the other side, an acre of dark sheets between them. She decides to risk it, arches an eyebrow. "Did you know you're on my side?"

Jack chuckles. "You could have rolled me over."

Juliet snuggles into the covers. It's _cold_ in here. "Somehow I doubt that - oh!" This room is COLD. She sits up with a jolt; David must be freezing.

Except Jack's already reaching out to her, practically pulling her back into bed, and the gesture is so alarmingly familiar and intimate that she feels weak in the knees. "David's fine. I gave him an extra blanket."

Sitting up in bed now, Juliet can see the tip of David's nose peeking out from above the tiny quilt, the way the covers move up and down as he breathes. She relaxes, lies back down, her knees drawn halfway up to her chest. "Thanks, what time is it? I can't believe he's still sleeping."

"A little after nine. He and I had some quality time earlier this morning. I got him before he could wake you up. You have fun with Rachel last night?"

"I... think so?"

"You think so?"

She can feel the way her forehead furrows as she explains the situation to Jack, mystery half-sister and all. "I just don't know what Rachel expects. I don't want her to get her hopes up, and I don't even think I want to go, but Rachel -"

"You don't want to meet her?"

"If you suddenly you found out you had a half-sister, and the parent you had in common doesn't exactly have the best track record - and that parent isn't even alive anymore... I mean, I don't even..." Her feelings are all swollen and bumping into each other and there's not exactly enough space for them all.

Jack shrugs. "I guess I don't know."

"We didn't know about her until now. What makes us think she knows about us? Her mother could slam the door in our faces."

"Call first."

Leave it to Jack to state the obvious. Last night she'd been too muddled by the weed to consider that; this morning, well, she'd just woken up. But sure, it wasn't something that had occurred to her. Rachel - well, Rachel just liked to plow straight ahead to _do_ things. Juliet actually starts to laugh, and she shifts slightly, her knees accidentally bumping Jack's under the covers. She swallows her laugh, moves them away. Not too fast - she doesn't recoil or anything, but not exactly too slow, either. This is weird now. Should they get up? Except David is still sleeping. They might as well just stay here, right? It's comfortable and warm and it's Christmas Eve morning and the room is so bright because they'd left the curtains open, and they're on the first floor and the ground outside is covered with glittering snow.

Jack smiles slightly, but his thoughts are obviously somewhere else all of a sudden. Is she supposed to ask? _OK, sure. _"What is it?"

"The dress shoes. The reason I needed to borrow dress shoes is because Allen - you know Allen? Guy with curly hair, glasses from my cohort?"

Juliet shrugs. Jack's classmates to her are a revolving door of smarmy note borrowers.

"Anyway, he had a block of tickets from his parents for Handel's Messiah. They'd donated a bunch of money to the Philharmonic or something. So he offered them to the people in our orthopedics rotation, and we were supposed to go last night." Jack shakes his head. "I think I had a lot more fun here."

"Even with my dad ready to paralyze you?"

"Hey, at least it was honest."

They smile ruefully at each other for a second, still curled on their sides, facing each other. "I didn't really have you pegged as a classical fan, considering."

"Not so much. But... Handel's Messiah? It just seemed like a nice thing to do at Christmas. Especially since you and David were going to be gone. Maybe some year we could take him to hear it."

Somehow Juliet's still never sure what's a promise and what's just hope. "Except he'll probably complain about his lame parents dragging him to listen to classical music."

Jack laughs. "Maybe Metallica, then?"

Juliet bites her lip, grinning for a second before a memory comes uninvited. "My mom always really liked opera. On Saturday mornings she would clean the whole house, and then afterward she'd always sit on the edge of the bathtub and paint her toenails. And the whole time she'd be playing these scratchy opera records on top volume. I never really understood it, but I guess I sort of always wanted to." Suddenly she feels like maybe she's exposed too much. "Hey, have you heard of this band Nirvana?"

Jack looks a little confused by her sudden change of subject. "Uh, yeah?"

"Oh, OK, sorry. It's just Rachel and Niall are pretty obsessed these days. I thought you might like them." Awkward transition. Great.

Then all of a sudden: "Ba? BABABABA!" They both start to sit up. "It's OK," Jack says. He gets up, changes David and then brings him back to the bed. David breaks into a huge smile, crawling exaggeratedly over to Juliet, all slapping hands and wiggling butt before he digs his fingers into the fabric of her long-sleeved T-shirt and pulls himself up onto his knees.

"G'morning, baby." Juliet scoops him up, wiggling with him, and lets his giggles wash over her as he starts patting her face. Then Jack's leaning over too, tickling David, and the three of them are just sort of laughing and cuddling in bed like a normal family and it feels_ ridiculously good,_ and then all of a sudden she almost can't breathe and she's not sure why.

* * *

In the front room Niall's standing over a pan of sizzling pancakes on the stove, holding a shiny new copy of Ariel in front of his face. "Hey there," Juliet says, not sure whether she's supposed to interrupt or not.

But he looks up at her, then at David on her hip, smiling at both of them. "Morning. Will he eat a pancake?"

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "Yeah, just in little pieces. He loves them."

"Figured he would."

Juliet hesitates for a second over the cleanliness of their floor, then plops David down anyway and gets busy making up a bottle for him. "Since when did you read Plath? I never thought that was your thing."

"Isn't, but I'm taking a course on the confessionalists this semester."

"Oh, jeez. And in the winter? Just make sure you don't stick your head in the oven by the end of it, all right?"

Niall laughs, and something about it gets David laughing too. Niall breaks off a tiny edge of a pancake that's already done, blowing on it before bending down and offering it to him. David takes it and carefully inserts into his mouth, his eyes instantly lighting up. Once it's smacked into oblivion he babbles happily, bouncing his diapered butt against the linoleum.

"I knew it! That whole time, all the pancakes, it had to've been your favorite, right, kiddo? Your mum could've eaten pancakes for Ireland." And then he's swinging around, pouring her a glass of apple juice. "You still hate orange juice, don't you, Jules?"

She reaches for the glass, thanking him, and hears a soft cough behind her, turns around to see Jack watching them. His hair's wet from the shower and the look in his eyes is... what? His eyes are unusually dark all of a sudden. "Hey there," she says uncertainly, screwing the top of the bottle on for David.

Jack just gives her a weird look, the corners of his mouth turning down. He picks up David, takes the bottle from Juliet and heads for the couch. In the meantime Niall's saying something about Ferlinghetti and asking how long they're in town and Ferlinghetti's reading at NAU on the third and...

And why can't she talk about books or poetry with Jack? They have David, but is that enough? And it's not like Jack even feels that way about her anymore, right, and she's not supposed to feel that way about him, it's way too complicated, and is Niall still in love with Rachel and _OH MY GOD can someone please do something about all this right now?_ And then Cindy's coming down from the upstairs bathroom, still toweling off her hair, and Rachel's right behind her whining about food, and Juliet has an entirely fun morning.

* * *

In the afternoon Jack and Juliet and Rachel bundle up, with David in a snowsuit so puffy that "A Christmas Story" jokes are flying from the second Juliet's got it zipped up. They plunk him down in the snow, his waterproof mittens secured, and David's mouth drops open in amazement. Immediately he tries to scoop up a handful of snow to eat it - nearly impossible with the puffy mittens, but he's content to try for awhile. Rachel had bought a tiny red plastic sled up in Flagstaff, and they take turns swishing him around with it.

When Juliet and Jack are with him, Rachel pulls out her camera, starts snapping pictures. "David, look!" Juliet points to the camera. David points too, missing the purpose, and she and Rachel and Jack crack up.

A little awhile later, as Rachel tugs the sled along the fence, Juliet notices Jack sneaking a glance at her. "What's up?"

"I didn't know you and Niall were such good friends."

She nods. "Well, he was my roommate too, that summer. Back before I'd told anyone I was pregnant, he sort of guessed. He helped take care of me, a little bit."

"That was nice of him," Jack says stiffly.

_Sure...? _"We've always stayed in touch."

"And that's why he came when you were in the hospital."

She shrugs uncomfortably. What's he getting at? Doesn't he like Niall? "He was doing a favor for Rachel, really, giving her a ride. You know he's in love with her."

Jack's whole demeanor changes suddenly, it's like he relaxes, slouching a little. "He is?"

"Well, he was, maybe. I don't know. Rachel wasn't... I don't know." Juliet glances over at her sister in a forest green jacket, pulling the sled along the split rail fence. Remembering that Ouija board, almost a year ago.

* * *

On Christmas morning Juliet's buttoning up Rachel's pilfered plaid shirt over a thermal when Jack jerks awake. "What are you doing?"

"Going to chop wood."

Jack looks at her like she'd just told him she was on her way to hunt wild boar or something. "You're what?"

"We need firewood so we can have a fire going all day today. We're in the woods. It's Christmas. Last I checked, that means a fire is practically mandatory." She sits on the edge of the bed, pulling on her first hiking boot.

He chuckles a little, now. "So you're just going out to chop wood. What other secret skills do you have?"

"I don't know. It's just something we've always done together here."

He sits up, throws off the covers. "Well, I can take care of it!"

"Jack, no, it's fine. Duncan's already waiting for me."

"Not Niall?"

"What? No. Stay here. Look after David. I'll be fine." She finishes tying up her other boot. Why's Jack always asking about Niall, anyway? Is she wearing a sign that says "Confused and Unloved" or something?

* * *

Christmas is just about as silly and unrestrained and fun as possible. Not too much like last year's polite silence at the Shephards' - although, there's no foosball table here, so Mountainaire definitely loses points there. Duncan wears a blinking red Rudolph nose and Cindy's got one of those hideous Christmas sweaters that (Juliet hopes) is supposed to be a joke. There's an awful lot of spiked eggnog, and Niall starts reciting way too early: "I am waiting for my case to come up, and I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder. And I am waiting for someone to really discover America, and wail - "

"Anti-American!" Rachel interrupts him, teasing, or mocking, Juliet's not sure.

"He's from New York," Juliet offers.

_"And I am WAITING," _Niall continues snippily, _"for the discovery of a new symbolic western frontier, and I am waiting for the American eagle to really spread its wings and straighten up and fly right and I am waiting for the Age of Anxiety to drop dead."_ He pauses for a breath, sticks his tongue out at Rachel. Cindy's laughing hysterically. Jack just looks baffled.

"And I am waiting..." Juliet begins, except it's a bluff.

"Oh, you don't know the next part," Rachel says.

"Jules..." Niall prompts.

_Dammit_. Too much (necessary) time spent on chemistry and physics and anatomy and then there was that whole having-a-baby thing. "For the continual rebirth of wonder?"

"ENNNHHH!" Rachel imitates a game show buzzer.

"Oh come _on!" _Juliet protests.

_"And I am waiting for the war to be fought which will make the world safe for anarchy,"_ Rachel says, then makes the sign of devil's horns.

Juliet gapes at her, then gapes over at Niall, who's grinning proudly. _You are freaking kidding me.  
_

"Good job, Rach," he says.

Jack takes another sip of eggnog.

They'd done presents amongst themselves in the morning - Juliet didn't have anything for Jack, considering the short notice (considering the fact that they hadn't exactly been friends lately), but he'd bought her a book, an old Virginia Woolf containing two novels, The Waves and Jacob's Room. "Thanks," she'd sort of stammered, and they'd gone on to David's toys.

Dad and Stephanie show up mid-afternoon, surveying the anarchy of the day; wrapping paper everywhere Duncan's Rudolph nose now propped up on his forehead; David far more interested playing with boxes than presents. Juliet feels a little flushed from happiness or maybe too much eggnog, but somehow she feels too exposed now with her parents (her _parent_ and her stepmom? Is David going to have to deal with stepparents one day? _UGH_) here and just... they're all a big mess like they're still really kids, and now the _real_ grownups are here.

"Does he know about opening presents yet?" Stephanie asks. She and Dad had each hauled in a big bag, and now she's got a big colorful package on the couch.

"Um, if you start ripping it, he'll catch on." Juliet sits David on the couch next to her stepmom. Stephanie leans over and rips the corner nearest David. Juliet guides David's hand, but of course he's more fascinated with the piece of paper he ends up clutching in his hand. Eventually she and Stephanie get the paper off, and it's a toddler-sized Fisher-Price piano with rainbow-colored keys. "This is so cute, thank you!" Juliet exclaims. She realizes she's mainly talking to Stephanie at this point.

"Well, you said he liked music, so..." her dad offers.

Stephanie smiles. "He went and picked it out himself."

"You did?"

"Yeah. Well, Toys R Us opens at 7, so I just went before work." He shrugs, but there's a smile playing at his lips as Stephanie opens the box and turns the little white piano toward David. They watch as he scoots forward and touches a bright green key, gently, with the tip of his index finger. His mouth drops open in silent amazement.

* * *

The days go by. They continue with their fake/real family. Dad and Stephanie go back to warm, sunny Key West. In the woods of Northern Arizona, it snows three days in a row. David smacks away at his colorful piano keys; they read him new Christmas books.

Outside one day, Juliet hands Jack the ax, shows him just where to split the wood. Inside one night, she burns her hand making dinner with Rachel. Jack bandages her up.

(Cindy leaves. Jack doesn't move out to the couch.)

(Nothing continues to happen.)

New Year's Eve, Rachel and Niall and Duncan disappear to other parties. Juliet and Jack make dinner at the house, watch the New Year's parties on TV with David sleeping on the couch between them. Juliet wonders what Michelle Burke is doing tonight. If she's crocheting somewhere else with someone who needed her. Juliet reaches out and strokes the shell of David's ear, so softly it'd never wake him up.

_(I am waiting to get some intimations_  
_ of immortality_  
_ by recollecting my early childhood_  
_ and I am waiting_  
_ for the green mornings to come again_  
_ for some strains of unpremeditated art_  
_ to shake my typewriter_  
_ and I am waiting to write_  
_ the great indelible poem_  
_ and I am waiting_  
_ for the last long rapture_  
_ and I am perpetually waiting_  
_ for the fleeting lovers on the Grecian_  
_ Urn to catch each other at last.)_

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is speaking at the university on January 3, and Jack's going to stay with David so Juliet can go with Rachel and Niall. That afternoon Juliet and Jack bring David to the diner to see Juliet's long-ago coworkers, whoever might still be around. Lisa's jaw drops when they walk in, and Juliet grins, overwhelmed once more for the pride she feels for David.

"Holy crap, look at you guys!"

"Yeah. This is David. Oh, and this is Jack."

Lisa swaps her notepad to the other hand, reaches out and shakes with Jack. "Wow, OK, I always pictured her with a blond baby, but I get it now. Hey, welcome, wow, this is crazy. He's so cute, can I hold him? Are you eating here, you need a high chair?"

Once they're in the booth, Jack steals a look across the diner. "Is she always like that?"

"They dropped shrooms in the back sometimes, so..."

Jack looks a little shocked. "That's why you didn't let her hold him?"

"She's perfectly capable of taking orders and filling napkin dispensers."

"Did you ever do shrooms?"

Juliet shakes her head, moving the silverware away from David's grasp, replacing them with his favorite toy plane. "I was always afraid I'd be the one person who had the freakout and jumped off a building."

"Even with your fear of heights?"

"That would make it even worse." Her mind spools back to those nights on the rusting railroad bridge, first with Niall and then alone. She looks over at David, who's currently covering his plane with a paper napkin. Somehow he's managed to drool on it a little. She can't imagine a different life anymore.

* * *

When they're back at the house, unloading David from the car, he spots his sled half-hidden in the snow and squeals, rocking against Jack and pointing at it, screeching. "Think he's trying to tell us something?" Jack grins, squinting into the sunlight.

"I should get his other mittens, the waterproof ones."

"OK. I'll stay out here with him."

Juliet's not really thinking as she goes into the house, the door's unlocked, and her scarf is slipping off her shoulder. She's opening the door and pushing the scarf back on her shoulder all at once, looking down at it, and when she looked up, all she sees for a second is a tangle of limbs on the couch.

They're fully dressed, denim-clad legs intertwined, and they're facing each other, Rachel and Niall, sound asleep with their arms wrapped around each other. They're sleeping as close together as two people could possibly sleep, and it's more shocking than the day - almost three years ago, now - that Juliet had walked in on her sister fucking that lifeguard. And more intimate, so intimate that her first instinct is to look away. Her second instinct is to cry.

The three of them are supposed to all go _out_ tonight together? To see Lawrence fucking _Ferlinghetti?_ While Jack - who probably never even heard of Lawrence Ferlinghetti until Niall had had a little too much eggnog and started spouting off poetry - stays home with David?

And until five _seconds_ ago, Juliet was still _naive_ enough to think that the poems were something between the two of them, between her and Niall, but instead now her brain's been captured by The Gods of Pre-Med and childhood developmental milestones to look out for, and how many ounces of formula David still gets and when bedtime is, and...

And she's supposed to pretend she never _saw? _And... and... and once upon a time, Jack was supposed to be the perfect one, or Niall, and it doesn't even matter because neither one of them - neither one of them - NEITHER ONE OF THEM - and _Jack_, she wasn't supposed to - she wasn't supposed to, again -

Her chest keeps on getting tighter and tighter as she sorts through the clutter on the kitchen counter as quietly as possible until she finds David's waterproof mittens. Then she focuses on her face in the hallway mirror, getting herself under control until she can fake a pretty decent smile. She goes out and plays in the snow with Jack and David until her feet go numb. As opposed to the rest of her.

_What if I never have what you have,_ Rachel had once asked her.

_What if I never have what you have, _Juliet wants to ask Rachel now.


	43. Maybe Some Other Time

**Well, I'm back. Sort of. Life is extremely busy right now, but I really missed writing, so here you go. I'm hoping to be able to keep up with this again, but let's see how life goes... No matter how long this takes, though, I promise it WILL get done, and although this will otherwise fit in with canon/remembering, NO, there will be no church scene/white light at the end!**

* * *

"Imagine that I'm at your mercy.  
Imagine that you are at mine.  
Pretend I've been standing here  
watching you watching me  
all this time."

- Ani DiFranco, "Imagine That"

* * *

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, it turns out, signs his autographs in pencil, or at least he is tonight. It's not really her book anyway, or rather, it is now, another copy of A Coney Island of the Mind she bought tonight at the NAU bookstore since hers is back in L.A.

_Ferlinghetti_, he writes, underlining it once, nothing more or less, and she's too tongue-tied to say much of anything at all, wondering why she was remembering reading from this book in a yellow-painted room, when she is pretty fucking sure she's never lived anywhere with a yellow room. Unless they'd had one in Portland?

That was too long ago now to think about now, though. And there's no way she was reading this when she was eight years old.

Afterward, the three of them go to Rachel's bar on the south end of Flagstaff, midnight-dark and wood-paneled, choked with cigarette smoke. Rachel points out her friend Robbie, instructs them to go to him all night for their drinks; he'll only put half their orders on the tab.

"Want me to get the first round?" Juliet offers. Night out, without having to worry about the baby. This is what she wanted, right?

"Thanks, maybe just get us a pitcher to start?" Niall asks. Duncan's supposed to show up later to drive their inebriated asses home later, if need be.

Up at the edge of the bar, twisting her ID between her fingers over and over, Juliet sneaks a glance over at the two of them. Niall's leaning over the table just a little, tweaking the edge of Rachel's chin-length hair between his index finger and thumb. She's got her face tilted up toward him, smiling in a way Juliet's pretty sure she's never seen before.

"Hi, Rachel's sister." Robbie's voice snaps Juliet's attention back to the front. "What'll it be?"

"Could we get a pitcher of Miller High Life?" Juliet starts to hold out her license and he waves it away.

"Ahh, the champagne of beers."

"Nothing but the best." She rolls her eyes a little while smiling at him, taking in their digs. What's wrong with her that she can't even be happy for her sister? And why isn't Rachel even telling her about whatever's going on? "You know what? Could I get a double shot of tequila too?"

Robbie delivers the pitcher, the frosted glasses, the double shot of tequila with that nice little slice of lime on the side. He winks at her. Is he trying to flirt with her? He doesn't even know her name, though; she's just 'Rachel's sister' to him and he doesn't know that she has stretch marks hiding under her sweater. Juliet turns away from the bar, away from the table in the corner (not that Rachel and Niall are probably paying attention to her anyway), so she's facing the door, and she downs the shot, sucking on the slice of lime and closing her eyes for as long as she dares. All alone in a sea of people.

* * *

If they wonder why she's so quick to offer to get refills on their pitchers, they don't say so out loud. And if they wonder why every time she gets up, it's a little bit more slowly and more wobbly than the last, they don't mention that, either. Robbie keeps giving her shots, asking her questions, where's she from, what she's studying, and she answers them all with as few details as possible until he gets the point and just shuts up and brings her the damn booze.

At some point she realizes Duncan and Allie and this guy whose name is Lennon or something is there, and she snorts out a giggle because seriously, he's got the round glasses and _everything_ and who does he even _think_ he's fooling?

Rachel's staring at her intently. "You OK, Julie?"

She nods her head furiously; only her face feels flushed and the room seems to keep bouncing even after she stops nodding. Shit. _Shit._ Her neck feels a little wobbly, even, her head kind of lolling to the right.

"Could someone get her some water?"

Allie's closest to the bar and she disappears into the throng of people. Juliet forces her feet flat against the floor, staring at the whorls of the dark wood table until a pint glass of water slides into her gaze and she takes a shaky sip.

"How much has she had?" Juliet hears Duncan ask.

"Maybe four pints?" Niall sounds confused.

Juliet holds up a hand. "I'm fine," she says. "It's just hot in here." That's what she tries to say, anyway. Instead, it comes out a closer to "Mwdsfsdglfdf."

Rachel pushes the water closer. "Drink; you'll feel better."

"Why - why - " Juliet tries.

Her sister actually raises the glass, tries to hand it to her. "Come on, Juliet."_  
_

_Come on, you sonuvabitch. _All of a sudden Juliet feels like she's going to throw up, gasping and heaving at the table.

"OK, here we go," Rachel announces, actually standing up with her huge clonking combat boots on her own chair, stepping over Niall's to get to Juliet. "Come on, let's go."

They barely make it through the doors of the ladies' room before Juliet rushes toward the sink and vomits into the basin; no time to find a toilet. The girl washing her hands at the next one over gives them a disgusted look before leaving. Juliet closes her eyes, the tears streaming down her hot face, her nose running. It's all so disgusting that she throws up again, but after the second time she starts to feel a little bit better, taking deep gulping breaths.

"Better now?"

Juliet splashes cold water on her face, feeling the irritation of her running eye makeup. "I think so."

"What the hell did you _drink?"_

Wait, _which_ one of them was supposed to have their act together, again? "Uh... _alcohol?"_

"No shit, sherlock. How _much?"_

"All of it?"

* * *

The cold air smacks her in the face when they leave the bar, but she still manages to pass out in the car on the way home. Then Rachel's shaking her awake and she's spilling out of the backseat onto the gravel driveway into Niall's arms, her knees buckling. "Whoa there," Niall says, hefting her back onto her own two feet.

(Jack would probably have carried her; is that supposed to be a good or bad thing?)

It's 1:08 according to the clock over the entryway; Jack's asleep on the couch, David sprawled out across his chest, his tiny fingers curling right under Jack's chin, and the reality of Juliet's actual life hits her with the force of a sledgehammer, and she feels so ashamed for her state right now. She's a mother, she's not _supposed_ to lose her shit like this and she's just so...

And then especially when Jack snaps awake in the dim glow of the hall light. "What's... are you - is she OK?" he turns his question straight to Niall when Juliet slumps against the kitchen-area counter. She would _like_ to sit on the stool, but the room is still spinning and she can't see how it would be a good idea to try.

Hell, she would _like_ to sit on the floor, or lie down on it, except that would make her feel even more ashamed, so no. Just no.

"Mama Bear had a little too much to drink tonight," Rachel reports dryly. Niall fills a water glass.

"I'm just gonna go to bed," Juliet mumbles. She feels like she's about to fall off the edge of the earth.

Jack's on his feet quickly, and David whimpers slightly but doesn't wake up. He disappears down the hall with him and he's back before Juliet's even taken a second sip of water.

"Drink that first and then you can go to bed."

If she drinks this entire glass, she's going to barf again. And if she barfs, she is going to barf on Jack. And if she barfs on Jack, she is going to laugh. For ever and ever and ever, amen. She half-laughs and then she realizes she's sort of staring at him, her mouth hanging open a little. "A few more sips," he commands.

"Jack," Juliet says firmly, and then realizes she had absolutely no fucking follow-up planned whatsoever.

"Um, are you guys good here?" Rachel sounds suddenly uncomfortable. "I mean, I can stay..."

"We're fine." Jack doesn't even turn to look at Rachel; she and Niall go upstairs. Juliet hears two separate doors close. One opens again but then the bathroom door closes. Somewhere in the process of over-listening, though, Juliet's managed to melt against the counter and she's now sitting on the floor and Jack is kneeling beside her trying to get her to drink the stupid fucking water.

"I don't _want_ - "

"Just drink. You'll regret it tomorrow."

_I'll regret it tomorrow anyway. _He has to help hold the glass up to her lips. Why didn't Rachel stay down here?

"Juliet. Drink."

She complies, finally, and when the water's gone Jack leaves the glass right there on the carpet and picks her up (she feels like she's made of rubber, all floppy right now, and ugh) and carries her off to bed. He deposits her there, like she's actually sick, or maybe like he's about to make love to her (which he is most definitely not, thank you very much... or NOT thank you very much, either way and she's not so sure) and "Wait, I wanna brush my teeth," Juliet mumbles, trying to climb out of bed and the floor rocks again and he's catching her at the elbows, guiding her into the bathroom.

Juliet brushes her teeth on her knees because it's the only way she can stay upright, this was all a horrible idea, and then she's clinging to the counter and rinsing out her mouth and making faces at herself in the mirror and Jack's banging on the door but ha ha ha, she locked it, _it's like when they were keeping him locked up and he would just get so angry pulling on those chains and screaming and pounding on unbreakable glass and_ somehow Juliet's stumbling forward again, unlocking the door.

* * *

The bed feels like it's really a boat _(a boat that blew up, a plume of dark smoke on the horizon)_, rocking and spinning, and she digs her heels and fingers into the sheets to try to get ahold of here and now and stop the shaking; it doesn't feel like she's ever going to stop feeling this way. She's trying to time her breaths to Jack's, trying to calm herself down, trying not to think about the garbage can that Jack put next to the bed and how she DOES NOT DOES NOT DOES NOT want to throw up in it, right now or ever.

"Are you OK?" Jack suddenly says, and she thought he was asleep.

"Uh huh." It's a wonderful lie that almost works.

She hears him shift before she feels it, and then he's on his side, facing her. Is she supposed to face him too? She doesn't know. She doesn't. But she rolls to her side too. It's dark in this room, her old room. "It's just, I've never seen you that drunk before."

"I'm..." There are a million ways Juliet could finish that sentence, both positive and negative, but instead she pushes forward and presses her lips against his. Jack kisses her back for long enough that she relaxes into it, his hand sliding up along her hip as he edges closer to her. She opens her mouth under his and he reaches up to grasp a fistful of her hair, and all she can hear is her own heart pounding and their heavy breathing. And god, it's been practically a millennium since the last time she'd had sex, and no one her age should be forced to go without it for so long, it's practically inhumane and his hand is on the inside of her knee now and sliding upward and _oh god, Jack, please keep going, please please_ - but of course, of _course_ he pushes her away.

"Juliet, I -"

"I'm sorry," she gulps automatically, her hand flying to her face, and that was not at _all_ what she was expecting to come out of her mouth.

"You're - "

"Forget it."

"It's just, you're drunk."

"Exactly." She rolls away, onto her other side. What does she even want.

"No, stop it." He sounds angry now. "You don't just get to play passive-aggressive because you're drunk and I'm trying to have a conscience here."

But what does she want? A relationship where she's always looking over her shoulder, waiting for something to go wrong? So she's been a little bit dazzled by what a good father he is. So what? What's that supposed to mean? It's not supposed to mean anything. It's not that she really has feelings for him... right? Right? What is it she's feeling? Everything is too confusing for right now. Juliet tries to squeeze that mysterious longing into a tiny tiny ball that can (maybe) roll away unnoticed. "I can't think about this tonight, all right? I just wanted a night where I didn't have to think about anything."

"Yeah, well, I noticed."

She'd sit up and look at him now, if she could. "Don't be a hypocrite. Can we just go to sleep? We have a long drive tomorrow."

There's a long silence. Exceedingly long for someone like Jack, who needs to practically slip his response in before you've even finished speaking. "OK."

* * *

The sun's way too bright and Juliet's stomach lurches every time the car takes a curve in the road. She's hunkered down in the back seat with David; Rachel's up front with Jack. "For what it's worth, Robbie said he was worry," Rachel says over her shoulder.

"It wasn't his fault," Juliet offers.

"Still."

Juliet leans her head against the side of the car seat, feels David's fingers pulling at her hair. She reaches out, plays with his foot. She feels very small, and young, and stupid right now, and she is pretty fucking sure that she has herself to blame for it. She moves her head back a bit, looking up into David's face, and he reaches down and pokes at the skin just under her right eye.

_"I am going to get a life this semester," _she tells him in the faintest of whispers. Not the kind that involves throwing up in sinks.

A good kind.

* * *

They break the drive into two days again, and Juliet hadn't wanted to incorporate the warm-hearted(?) family reunion into the end of the drive. Rachel had won out only because she couldn't afford much time off work.

So that means Jack and David are with them when they pull into the circular driveway of the modest Spanish-style house in Tustin, California. Juliet had made them stop at a McDonald's with a playground down the street so she could change David and calm him from his This Carseat Is a Horrible Prison angst. He's looking like relatively calm and clean now, propped up on her hip as they approach the house, and she's been studiously avoiding looking at Jack whenever possible.

"And they really know we're coming?" Her heart is beating fast.

"Well, not to the second, but yeah. I told them we'd be here this afternoon." Rachel is being patient and polite. This version of Rachel is always a little bit unnerving.

Jack's behind them on the steps, but of course he reaches over them and rings the bell. The first thing they hear is deep barking, followed by thundering steps. A shadow moves behind the door's frosted-glass pane, dipping down behind it and then rising back up.

The girl who answers is undoubtedly their sister, or Rachel's, anyway - they have the same eyes and chin, and she's too tall and too thin just like Juliet was at fourteen. She's also got coffee-colored skin and hair done in dozens of long, thin braids. She's clutching at the collar of a boisterous yellow lab. Her eyes move over their faces. "Um, hey, I'm Tahlia. This is Vincent." She leans back, calling over her shoulder. _"Mommm!"_

Neither Rachel nor Jack is saying anything, and Juliet realizes Rachel's eyes are moving over Tahlia's face too, maybe cataloging the similarities, the differences. "I'm Juliet," she finds herself saying. "That's Rachel, this is David, and Jack."

Tahlia tilts her head toward David. "He's so cute! _SIT_, Vincent. Sit. Can I hold him? HEY! _MOM!_" The entire time, she's backing up with the dog. "Come on in. My mom just got new tile put in the entryway so you don't have to take your shoes off."

The dog finally relents, going over to Jack and pushing his nose into Jack's hand. Juliet hands David to Tahlia. Rachel stands there like she's not sure what to do.

Footsteps approach: Tahlia's mother in a flowing white caftan, trailed by a heavyseat white guy with blue-gray eyes. "Well! It's about time you all got here! After that long drive, I hope you're hungry. Tahlia, honey, give me that baby!" She reaches out, hugs Rachel and then holds her out at arm's length to inspect her. "Well, I'm Rose, and which one do I have? Oh, you look shy, you must be Juliet."

"Actually, I'm Juliet," Juliet offers.

"Of course you are," the woman says, "and you're Rachel." She pats Rachel's face, moves over, hugs Juliet. "And _you!"_ She shakes her head at Jack, who's being forced to pet the dog; Vincent's practically sitting on his feet now. "Well, it's a good thing Vincent likes you, honey, otherwise I wouldn't be so sure about you. Now Tahlia, honey, give me that baby!" She plucks David from Tahlia's arms.

The man finally speaks. "Rose, maybe they'd like some tea?"

"Ohh, yes. I almost forgot. And this is Bernard. Would you all like some tea before lunch?"

Juliet hates tea; so does Rachel. _Maybe some other time _is what she almost says. But that's not what she wants to say at all. "Actually," she says, "that sounds great."

* * *

**SO! There's a deleted scene on a show DVD in which Rose mentions she had a daughter who died. So I thought I'd give her a daughter who doesn't die in the sideways. And Juliet gets a stepmom. Are you surprised? **

**Oh, one other thing. I know the timing is probably off for Vincent's lifespan. And I'm normally a stickler for accuracy. Let's choose to believe that, as a dog, Vincent can be reincarnated more than once.  
**

**Please leave a review!**


	44. The Everything of Today

_"But I'm not there to take care of him_  
_ and I'm not here to take care of me._  
_ I'm going outside to watch the house burn down_  
_ across the street."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Studying Stones"

* * *

Juliet never knows what to make of it when Rachel goes quiet. Sure, there are plenty of things her sister keeps to herself_ (maybe like one big thing in particular)_. But even when Rachel keeps the important things under wraps, she's usually running her mouth about something. Noelle's berries and Duncan being lousy in bed and _blah blah blah blah_ the morning Juliet had finally mustered up the courage to blurt out that she was pregnant.

Instead Rachel had toyed with her tea cup, now idly forks at her salad. Lunch is scallops over couscous, the kind of thing neither sister would attempt to make. Slices of lemon float in the water of a clear glass pitcher sweating in the middle of the table.

Small talk abounds at first. Juliet's senior thesis project, Jack's rotations, Rose's work managing a temp agency. Bernard is a dentist. Juliet says Rachel works in restaurant management and Rachel hides a smirk, but hey, it _does_ sound better than bartending. They're supposed to be good role models, right? Tahlia's a freshman in high school, on the robotics team. Neither Juliet nor Rachel nor Jack has a clue what that is, and Tahlia explains it all enthusiastically through a mouthful of braces, dashes upstairs to retrieve Polaroids of her fall project. She wants to go to college for engineering.

"So she got your brains," Rachel mutters to Juliet when Tahlia's upstairs, and Rose and Bernard are out of earshot.

"She also got my crossbite."

Over lunch Rose does most of the talking. The Big Serious Things. "Tahlia, honey, you're old enough to hear this," she says, reaching over and squeezing her arm. Tahlia glances over at Juliet warily (Juliet wonders what she's done already on the Sister Scale to rate such a glance), but Rose plows right on through it: how she'd met their father in New York when her Ford was spinning its wheels in the snow, how he'd pushed her out and they'd spent the night talking at a 24-hour diner. They'd gotten married quickly, "and I knew Mike had been married before but I didn't know about you girls."

Juliet slides her eyes across the top of David's head. He's sitting in her lap, gnawing on a piece of carrot, and she tries to figure out exactly how she'd planned to never tell Jack about his existence.

Bernard smiles at them, makes a silly little face at David.

"Then one night he's out on the back steps, this was after we'd moved to California, right before Tahlia was born. Maybe only a few weeks before. And there he is all upset because he says he's got a daughter he'd never met and it was your birthday, honey. And he only knew that because of the paperwork he'd signed."

Juliet realizes Rose is saying this all directly to her now; he'd _known_ Rachel, after all.

"So this was...?" Jack prompts suddenly.

"This would have been the summer of '77. Your birthday's in the summer?"

"June."

Rose nods. "Tahlia was born July 16."

Rachel finally speaks. "What about me?" Her voice is so impossibly quiet that for a second Juliet could have sworn it was Juliet herself who was speaking.

"Oh, honey." Rose actually looks like she wants to reach out and pat Rachel's hand. "He talked about you, of course he did. You were the one he really felt he'd left behind, of course. He _missed_ you. I was so..." Her mouth twists. "I was so... _angry_ with him for not telling me any of this, mind you. I just didn't know what to do."

Part of Juliet wants to let her talk, but then another part doesn't what to know too much. _What did you do, why didn't you leave him, why did he leave, why didn't he find us?_ Instead her arms tighten almost imperceptibly around David.

"He loved you," Rose says.

_Sure, sure, sure._

"So why did he leave," Rachel asks in a way-too-tight voice. Flat affect, no question mark at the end. Her fork drops to her plate.

Rose and Bernard both look over at Tahlia for a second, who shrugs at them with wide eyes. Rose sags a little, then turns more directly to Rachel. "I don't know what you remember, honey, but he and your mom used to have some pretty bad fights."

Rachel shifts in her seat. "I know."

Juliet's eyes dart towards Jack's; he's watching her so intently she feels almost translucent, and she's not entirely sure whether she's glad he's here or not. Jack offers her a tight smile. For half a second she thinks he's going to reach for her hand under the table, but he doesn't.

"A couple of times he got violent. He hit her. I'm so sorry. She asked him to sign over his rights to you girls, and he knew he had no choice, that he was doing the best thing for you by staying away. Your stepfather adopted you, and Mike never forgot about you. He never laid a hand on me. Or Tahlia. He learned from his mistakes."

Rachel keeps her head down for a long moment. Her hair is spread around the curve of her chin, hiding her face. "K," she finally chokes out.

"He... we never knew what happened to your mother. Not until you called me."

Rachel nods, reaching up and pressing a hand across her eyes. Her forehead and chin are bright red, and Juliet's 90 percent sure her sister is crying. And she's equally sure that Rachel's trying not to draw attention to it. Only a couple of days ago she was intensely jealous of Rachel had. Now Juliet's not sure how much more un-jealous she can get.

"Thank you for telling us," Juliet finally says.

* * *

Rose tries to shoo Juliet out the door with the rest of them after lunch until she finally convinces Rose that she really, _really_ does not want to play an improvised game of softball with Bernard, Jack, Rachel and Tahlia. It's not even the strange insta-family thing they all suddenly have going on (Juliet included, and she's not going to argue there).

"I have too many awful gym class memories. Really, Rose. I'm happy to help you clean up."

Rose's face softens, and she pulls out a clean pot from the lower cabinet, hands it to David along with a wooden spoon. "Play with that, baby. Can you play us a song?" David squeals, catching on quickly, smacking at the overturned pot.

"You'll have him doing that all day if you don't take that away from him." Juliet turns on the faucet.

Rose reaches over and turns it off. "You came all this way, we can sit in here all you want but you're not doing any dishes." She squints up at Juliet. "You and your sister really OK? You need anything? You had that baby awfully young. Mike didn't leave us much, but whatever we can spare, it's yours."

"Rose, no, we're - " A sudden, unexpected lump forms in Juliet's throat. Was Rachel supposed to say something today about needing a donor? Should Juliet bring it up now? What was the _plan_, here? "We're all right. I - I have student loans, and Jack's family helps, and... and our - our father helps Rachel when she needs it." Is she not supposed to still call Gerry Carlson their father? Except he is.

And anyway, Rose nods understandingly, sneaking a peek now out the window over the sink. Bernard's squatted down, playing catcher. "He's gonna wreck his knees," Rose mutters under his breath. Tahlia's at bat with Jack pitching from their tiny little improvised field. Rachel's just sort of hovering around a makeshift first base, and Jack throws an easy, under-handed pitch. Tahlia's bat connects, curving it out across the back yard, and Rachel and Jack both dash after it, but the ball hits the ground and Tahlia hoots from their version of second base, a battered old ballcap in the grass.

Rose's face lights up watching this all at the sink, these lovely apple cheeks swelling up on each side of her face. "Nice to see her smiling like that." She turns back to Juliet. "High school, you know how it is. All her friends from junior high, they're on the JV cheerleading squad now."

Juliet shifts, trying to drown out David's merry music-making. "Oh."

"Kids like to tease her. She's so tall for her age. And she's so smart. And the kids, they don't like that. Don't understand it. She's a chatterbox at home, but..." Rose threads the dishtowel through her fingers. "I worry eventually it's all gonna get to her."

_Like to the point that she climb a tree despite a terrible fear of heights just to avoid a party?_ "She said she's going to a dance for Valentine's Day, though."

"Oh, she did, did she?" Rose asks skeptically. "Not if you ask _me_. Bernard, he's the softy. He says, let her go, it'll make her so happy. But that boy, Terry, oh, he's sweet, but he's a _junior_. He's too old for her, honey, and what's he doing asking a freshman to the dance, anyway?"_  
_

"You know him?"

"Lives right down the street." Rose waves her hand toward the front of the house.

"I think you should let her go." _Says the girl who got pregnant at nineteen, and why should you listen to her?_

"And why's that?" Rose asks, as if right on cue.

Juliet glances out the window again. She has no idea how they're managing to play with only two people per side, but somehow in their modified game, Rachel's tagging Jack out and Tahlia's laughing, her baseball glove half-covering her face. She smiles softly, hopes that what's about to come out won't sound too egocentric. "Because... because no one ever invited me to a dance."

* * *

"So you're all right out here?" Juliet asks from the doorway of her bedroom that night, digging her bare toes into the dusty parquet. David's already asleep in his crib and Juliet's entire body is crying out for sleep after the two-day drive and the everything of today.

Rachel twists her head up from her pillow on the couch. "Yep."

"You don't need another blanket?"

"What? Nah, it's totally hot in here."

"Rachel." Juliet clutches the doorframe. She's going to trip over her sister's combat boots if she gets up in the middle of the night.

"What."

"Why didn't you tell them?"

"Tell them what?"

"Why didn't you ask Tahlia to get tested?"

Rachel's face floods with emotion. "I - just - they just, like, seemed so fucking _happy_. Like, who the fuck _are_ we to just drop out of the sky and heap all this shit on them?" she bursts out. "Tahlia never heard any of that stuff about her father until we showed up, and..."

"That's not a reason not to save your life." Juliet tries to keep her words calm but she can hear the anger at the edges.

But Rachel's curling up against the back of the couch. "I'm OK, right now. If something happens again, we'll ask them then."

"Is that the best plan according to your doctors?"

"I - just - look, you don't remember, OK? This shit is just - look, they get to be happy and I'm healthy right now, but I'm pissed about our father and I'm either going to go to sleep right now or go get fucking blind drunk, and I know you know what _that's_ like, so can we just go to sleep and fucking forget it?"

Juliet swallows down all her anger. Compresses it down, down, down, into some concentrated energy that feels ready to explode if she only hits it a couple more times. "Good night."

* * *

The phone books take up the entire back wall at the public library. Figures that the school libraries wouldn't bother with them; why would they need to? Jack's off finalizing his rotations for his final semester and she's got lab time to schedule and somehow David is actually turning a year old on Wednesday. But right now he's just chattering away in his made-up language again as she moves his stroller back and forth against the linoleum with her foot.

Yellow pages. Area code 928. _Nichols, M.D., Ronald, T._ She writes the number on the back of her hand, feeling like she's betraying everyone she loves the most in the world and reminding herself of the ways she is lucky.

And then. Then. "Ma... mama?"

The air vanishes from her lungs and a pair of wide blue eyes is staring up into her own. David's holding up his arms.

"What - what did you just say, baby?"

"Mamamamama!" David trills, obviously pleased with himself.

Juliet lifts him up, laughing and covering his face with kisses. Her heart swelling up all over again, hoping this is some kind of sign from the universe.

* * *

**Sorry if the past two chapters have been kind of downers. I think the next one will probably actually be a funny one, if that sweetens the pot any.**


	45. Wynken, Blynken and Nod

**This chapter took forever to write, and I think it's the longest single chapter I've ever written. I hope you enjoy it, and please leave a review!  
**

* * *

_"I don't expect he'll have much sympathy for my grieving_  
_but I guess that this is the price that we pay for the privilege_  
_of living for even a day_  
_in a world with so many things_  
_worth believing_  
_in."_

- Ani DiFranco, "School Night"

* * *

**Spring semester, 1992**

So, that life she'd told herself she was going to get this semester? All right, all right, so figure in the one-year-old and the senior thesis and the utter lack of prospects of the actual Having of a Life, and that goal seems a lot more laughable once classes start back up. Maybe Juliet was a tad too optimistic in the shadow of that grinding hangover.

They celebrate David's first birthday the weekend afterward their return, exactly as they'd planned it, at Margo and Christian's with everyone on their best behavior. Rachel stays through that Sunday so she can attend, only muttering once "How much more fucking depressing can these people _get?"_ under her breath. At least Jack hid champagne in the garage again, and mostly throughout that party, Juliet keeps a polite smile on her face as she helps Margo in the kitchen and tried to keep cake out of David's hair.

Truth is, every time she looks at the dwindling numbers in her bank account, she's reminded of exactly what a big favor Margo is doing for her, watching David. Last semester's Thursdays have expanded to include Monday and Tuesday afternoons too, although she never leaves David with Margo later than 6:30. Granted, it's a totally arbitrary time considering Christian's a spinal surgeon and not an insurance salesman, and he can just as well be working any shift imaginable. She rarely sees him at the house, though, and the few times she does, he looks fine to her. Sober, restrained. And David is always happy to see both his grandparents.

So is that selling out? Giving in?

Yes, yes it is.

Jack hasn't actually tried to forbid it, but he's tried to talk her out of it plenty of times.

"They're your own parents, and _you're_ still here, Jack," she says for what feels like the fiftieth time that first week after. Jack's hovering around the door of her bedroom while she folds the latest load in the holdover of vacation laundry.

Jack's practically twitching at the edges. "And what if something happens? You want that on your conscience? David is _our_ son, he's _our_ responsibility - "

"And I need someone to take him in the afternoons." She's folding a stack of David's tiny T-shirts: dinosaurs, solid green, a little Red Sox one. _Guess where that one came from._ _Yep, Grandpa._ "We can't afford a sitter for that much time. You're busy. I'm busy. Your father is obviously well enough to work. What else do you suggest?"

Jack's nostrils flare. He hates it when he runs out of argument. He opens his mouth. Closes it again.

"Do you want to sit around and whine about it, or do you want to help?" She glances at the clock; Jack's here to watch David for her, had been early for a change. Early enough to nag her when mostly she's just on a treadmill of studying, classes, research, writing, mothering._ Fun, hello, where are you again?_ She holds out a pair of overalls. "You can finish folding, or you can get a job."

* * *

"I think I need a boyfriend."

Gemma almost chokes on her burrito. "You _what?"_

"I... think I need a boyfriend," Juliet repeats, glancing around the dining area of the student union. Hoping no one else can overhear what's sure to be a humiliating conversation. "Preferably one with a low sperm count." _Oh, shit._ "David. David, what do you have in your mouth? Give that to Mama." David starts whining as Juliet fishes out a plastic straw wrapper.

Gemma wrinkles her nose as Juliet wipes off her fingers. "I think the technical term for what you _need_ is to get laid."

"And if David's first full sentence involves 'getting laid,' I'm going to tell Jack to blame his baby's godmother."

Her eyes narrow slyly. "Speaking of Jack and getting laid..."

"Don't tell me you have a dastardly plan to seduce your sophomore-year mentor." Meanwhile Juliet's trying to figure out how to get David's toy plane out of his hands so she can get him to focus on actual food.

"OK, can you please shut up about that? But seriously. _Nothing_ is going on there?" Gemma scoops up some guacamole with a chip, makes it do a little mid-air dance for David, who opens his mouth obediently.

"No." Juliet watches David as he ends up with a chinful of guac, reaching over and wiping it off with a napkin.

"You know you're gonna give him some sort of neatness complex if you always have to keep him that clean, right?"

"No, he's that neat already. He starts screaming if he's messy."

"Well... _that_ sounds just delightful. Try not to bring that up when you're trying to get laid."

Juliet flashes Gemma a warning glare. _Like I even remember what getting laid was like._

"OK, OK, OK. So do you have anyone in mind for this so-called boyfriend solution?"

Juliet decides to level with her. It's not so easy, this Opening Up thing. "I'm not expecting someone to come swooping in to save the day or anything. I just want... someone I can talk to, I guess. Someone who won't run away just because I have a baby."

"Don't you think you're setting the bar kinda low?"

She can't help the smirk. "Not really, no."

"All right. So you're not an optimist. Hey, you know who you should meet?" Gemma starts in on some guy she knows, Allen somebody, a chem major. Tall. Obviously that means they're made for each other. "He's pretty laid-back, his sister's got two little kids so he's used to being drooled on. You were a biochem major first. You _love_ chemistry, you freako. And he is seriously hot."

"Seriously hot is probably something I can live without."

"Come on. I can totally fix you guys up."

"On what, a blind date? Do people still go on those?" Aren't blind dates just something that happened as a plot device on Three's Company, along with comical misunderstandings?

Gemma stares at Juliet for a long moment. "Your alternative choice is we hussy ourselves up and go to a Delta Tau party."

"That is never happening."

"Well. OK then."

* * *

They definitely should have hussied themselves up and gone to a Delta Tau party.

Because Allen may be a chem major, but he's definitely arrogant enough to have been pre-med, and Juliet's had no shortage of interactions with that particular brand of arrogant pre-med students.

All through dinner - and yes, they're having dinner like this is actually an Official Blind Date - he keeps going on and on about his idiotic lab partner who'd signed up for the wrong chemistry course, one for science majors. "I don't know what this idiot's major was, but he clearly should have been in Kiddie Chem and somehow no one noticed until it was too late."

And on and on about some minor explosion in the lab, which honestly would have/could have probably been an amusing story if it weren't for Allen's superior tone through the entire thing. Especially when he starts explaining about the energy needed to break triple bonds in Nitrogen and Juliet wonders if he actually expects her to hang adoringly on his every word.

Jack can be a lot of annoying things, and maybe he can be a little bit arrogant sometimes too, but not at the expense of other people. He'd never gloat about some poor doofus having a lab accident.

Eventually Allen finally remembers he can stop talking about his own superiority. "Now, I forgot what Gemma said your major was. ...English, right?"

How many girls has Gemma been trying to fix him up with? "Biology."

"Ohhhh... oh, right, you're pre-med, right? I remember now."

Maybe if she says all the right (wrong) things, she can be home in time to put David to bed. Gemma's watching him tonight, as a favor, so Juliet doesn't have to spend money on a sitter and Jack won't ask where she's going. "It was biochem before, but I needed more time to have a job. You know, with the baby and all."

Allen nods nervously, takes a sip of his drink. "Right. Right. How's... how's that all working out for you?"

"Oh... well, it's fine. It get kind of frustrating when he just starts crying and won't stop. He hates getting dirty, so - " Juliet sort of flutters both hands into the air, rolling her eyes - "he just won't stop screaming. And _then_. Well." She smiles, now, building him up for it. "They all say just _wait_ for the terrible twos..."

(She gets home in time to put David to bed.)

* * *

Bachelor #2 is named Colby. "What is he, a block of cheese?"

"He's a nice guy, Juliet."

"And Allen was..."

"Allen is a _hot_ guy," Gemma acknowledges. "Yeah, he's kind of a prick, but he said he was OK with the kid thing. And anyway I really thought you were just trying to get laid."

"I was not going to let that arrogant bastard hold my_ purse."_

"Yeah yeah yeah, OK_. _Just meet this one, for me?"

Turns out, Colby _is_ a nice guy, even though they go bowling, which is one of the most ridiculously embarrassing first-date set-ups ever, especially with the rental shoes and her huge feet and then they're supposed to lunge around with huge heavy balls and act like this is something they do allll the time? He doesn't try to give her bowling pointers or anything, at least, but there's just something she can't shake about him. He's from the South, Mississippi he tells her, "biscuits and gravy and way too much church." He's a tall guy, muscular, sort of shaggy dark blond hair. A little unkempt, not really her type. If she had a type anymore.

"So you like any sports other than bowling?" Colby asks at one point.

Juliet actually giggles. "Does that imply I like bowling?"

He barks out a laugh. "Touche. Nah, I'm just wondering, because a buddy of mine gave me a couple of tickets to the ballgame, and - I mean, are you into the Dodgers at all?"

"Well, Jack likes the Red Sox - " she begins, cutting herself off when she realizes she has no idea why she would say that. So Jack likes the Red Sox, so what?

"That's your son?"

Is she going to see him again? Maybe? Was he already asking her out on another date? Or trying to? What's she supposed to say? _No, that's my son's father whom I spend way too much time with? But don't worry because that won't be a deterrent at all to me having any sort of boyfriend?_ He's waiting for an answer, and obviously he must not realize how young David is, and she doesn't know what she's supposed to do, so she just nods.

It doesn't matter. She's not going out with him again. Colby _is_ a nice guy. And his Southern accent _is_ sort of cute, she's not going to lie. But there's just something missing, and she can't put her finger on it.

* * *

At least the Colby experience somewhat restores her faith in Gemma's matchmaking ability. "One last time and that's it."

"Then we're going to a Delta Tau party?"

"Then I'm signing chastity vows."

"I think you already did."

But three dates in four weeks is still a lifetime record for her, and she meets up with Sean at the Santa Monica Pier. He'd suggested it over the phone, isn't a total ass when she refuses the Ferris wheel, and they play arcade games and eat drippy pizza slices on a bench. He places his hand on her lower back for half a second before they sit, and she doesn't think it's too forward. Their back-and-forth isn't the most mind-blowingly fascinating in the history of her life, but she hasn't once felt the urge to hit him in the face with her food like she had with Allen.

_OK_, she thinks._ This isn't bad._

And it isn't, until she mentions how she's looking forward to bringing David to the pier when he's a little older.

Sean shakes his head a little, looking confused. "Who's David?"

"Oh, my son."

His jaw drops a little; the paper plate of pizza sags in his hand. "You have a...?"

Once upon a time, this would have been one of those situations where Juliet found herself wishing the ground would just swallow her up. Instead - "She didn't tell you," she gets out in half a laugh.

Sean's eyes keep getting bigger and bigger, like Juliet's about to tell him she actually has _ten_ kids and they're all moving in with Sean tonight. "You... how... how old is he?"

"Thirteen months."

"O...K..."

Is he going to hyperventilate or something? "Sean, it's fine. Don't worry about it. We can finish our pizza and go our separate ways."

"Um... I... OK, sorry, it's just, I mean, you're a cool girl and everything, it's just, that's a lot to take on, and - "

"Like I said. Pizza. Then we leave. It's OK." Juliet shakes her head and takes another bite. Maybe every Santa Monica date is just doomed.

* * *

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just ran out of guys who were OK with you having a kid!"

"I'm done, Gemma."

It doesn't matter, she needs to throw all her energy into writing the first draft of her senior thesis now anyway. This ends up translating into a lot of time in the computer lab at the library when she has someone to watch David. Otherwise she brings him over to Jack's to use the computer there. For the first time since they broke up she actually has a key again, so she can use his computer when he's not home. It's harder when David's awake, but at least when Jack's around he can entertain him, even with the three of them crammed into his little studio apartment.

"Dada," she hears Jack coaching David as she types. "Can you say 'dada'?"

"MAMA!"

"Dada," he tries again.

"Dis?"

Juliet looks over and David's holding out one of his toy cars, this one a blue-and-white van. Sort of looks like one of those hippie buses. He says a handful of words now, just not the elusive 'dada.' "Jack, I'm sorry, would you mind putting him to bed early? I really need to work."

He looks up in protest. "Juliet, I just got home, I want to see him."

"You'll have him in the morning. You can take him tomorrow night if you want, I just have to bring this section to my adviser in the morning and..."

Jack hesitates. "I kind of have plans tomorrow night."

_Great. So really, everyone in the universe is now getting laid other than me._ Juliet actually feels a little bit sick for some reason.

Maybe Allen wasn't so bad. Maybe his lab partner really _was_ incompetent. Maybe the incompetent lab partner could have blown up the entire fourth-floor chem lab and killed everyone within miles, and only by a stroke of great luck did the entire UCLA population escape with their precious lives. "Do you want me to go to the computer lab?"

"No, no, it's OK. I'll get him started with his bath." Jack scoops up David, blowing raspberries onto his belly.

"Thanks," she says softly. "You can take him the next night, if you want. Just give me a call." Juliet turns back to the computer screen, the blinking cursor. What was she writing about, again?

* * *

Juliet's halfway out the doors of the library when she realizes her backpack is way too light, and did she leave one of her textbooks up in her study carrel? Glancing at her watch, she decides Amy can wait a little bit longer with David, she's never complained before, anyway, and she heads back up to the fourth floor of the library.

She hesitates at the opening to the carrel, someone's already in there. He looks up just as she says, "Excuse me."

"Is this - "

"Did you find - "

The guy in there is gesturing toward her Recombinant DNA text, still on the desk, and Juliet relaxes. "Thank you."

"No sweat. I would have brought it to Lost and Found, but I thought maybe you would come back. Well, not _you_, but whoever owned the book. Which, as it turns out, happens to be you." He looks a little awkward, like he's not quite sure when he's supposed to stop talking.

"Well, thanks, that's... really nice of you." He's still not offering her the book, so finally she steps forward to get it.

"Oh! Oh, sorry. Here." He holds it out to her, a shiny burnmark on his forearm. She reaches for her text, glancing at his own chemistry formulas laid out on the desk. "I guess this probably looks like kindergarten work to someone like you, huh?"

"What's your major?"

"Econ," he admits sheepishly. "I'm in way over my head."

He's cute, she decides, in kind of a non-threatening way. Brown hair, curly, a little too long. Wire-rimmed glasses. Kind of nerdy, kind of awkward. She's been there. She can be the smooth one now. Maybe. "That's a funny name."

"Also, um... also known as Patrick." He offers a hand to her, the same one with the healing burn on the arm, and she reaches out, shakes his hand.

"Juliet." She can't stop looking at that burn mark, though. She's seen burns like that before, she used to spend a lot of time in chem labs, after all, and -

"Um, cooking accident," he says when he sees her looking. "You know, I, um, I was thinking about taking a break, and... maybe we could get coffee sometime?"

He's trying, but she also has no idea what he just asked her. "You're thinking about taking a break sometime, or...?"

Patrick twists in his seat. "Would you like to go get a cup of coffee?"

Just because she has a kid doesn't mean she has to tell him_ right now,_ does it? "I do kind of owe you for the textbook."

He starts shoving his papers into a folder. "No, no, it's my treat."

"We can go dutch," she assures him, then remembers, hello, she's supposed to pick up David from Amy's in - what, ten minutes now? And it'll take at least twenty by the time she gets to her car and drives to the Goodspeeds'. Some mother she is. "Wait - I'm sorry. I have to... I have something I need to do. Maybe - "

"Oh, yeah, no, that's OK, I - "

"Patrick." For some reason, she finds herself laying a hand on the shoulder of this guy she's never even met. "Can I borrow a pen?"

"A pen? Yeah." He fishes on out of his backpack, and Juliet takes it, leans over and writes her number on a blank page in his notebook. "Call me sometime and we'll get that coffee."

"I'd offer to cook you dinner, but..." He waves his arm in the air.

"I'm sure you're a great cook, Patrick. I know a chemical burn when I see one."

She leaves the library smiling.

* * *

Patrick Casey is a lot of things Jack is not. He's patient enough to read - a lot. He stammers when he gets embarrassed, and sometimes he doesn't know the right thing to say so instead he says nothing at all. He's not sure exactly what to make of David, but he doesn't run away screaming, either. ("I figured when you told me where you lived that you had a kid. Or you were married. Between you and me, I was hoping for the kid.")

They go out four times before she works up the courage to invite him over. In theory, it's for dinner, and he offers to bring over a movie. He'd kissed her goodnight so sweetly after the last two dates, more than making up for the sort of awkward wave she'd gotten the first two times, and Juliet tells Jack she needs a night of quiet, gets him to take David and tries to figure out why suddenly she feels like she's about to have an affair. How "Dynasty" of her.

Patrick shows up with flowers for her - actual fucking flowers! - and she realizes she doesn't even have a vase, but she fills a pitcher with water.

"Something smells good," he observes.

"I'm not much of a cook, but..." she shrugs, not sure what to do, where to look, but she sees the stack of tapes on the table in their rental-store boxes. "What movies did you bring?"

"'To Kill a Mockingbird,' 'The Abyss.' And um..." He holds up the last one, and she can make out the title through the opaque plastic haze of the box: 'Follow That Bird,' the Sesame Street movie. "I didn't know if David would be here."

"He's at his dad's." _Because I am here about to act like a huge slut. __  
_

Only she doesn't feel like a slut. Technically she thinks she's been semi-permanently disqualified from qualifying for that title, anyway, and during the beginning of the second movie, Patrick turns to her and meets her lips with his, and that's what she wanted, anyway.

It's all far better than she even remembered, and somewhere in the middle of it Juliet wonders if Matt and Stacy are on the other side of the wall right now totally mortified by the sounds she can't hold back, doesn't even want to. Patrick is giving and considerate and somehow despite the awkwardness, also really fucking sexy, and all that is supposed to be enough, and then her mind shuts down entirely.

* * *

A ringing phone slowly pulls her out of sleep, even as she draws closer to the warm body wrapped around her. They'd been up half the night, and as Juliet cracks open her eyes now, she sees it's close to 11 - when was the last time she'd slept this late?

She pulls away from Patrick to reach for the phone, although he grumbles a little and tries to pull her back. "I have to," she reminds him gently, and he releases her.

"Juliet?" Jack sounds baffled.

She wants to slide all the way back under the covers and hide there, naked, forever. "Hey."

"Where are you?"

"What?" Juliet blinks, and Patrick's leaning over her now, pressing nibbling kisses up and down her neck.

"You were supposed to pick David up at 10," comes Jack's voice on the other end of the phone.

She shoots straight up now, pushing Patrick away. "Jack, I'm so sorry, I was still sleeping - "

"You're still sleeping?" He sounds incredulous now, maybe a little annoyed, but he's done this to her before, and she's never done it to him. How mad can he get? Plenty, she realizes, if he knew the reason why - "Well, I can just bring him over there, we're over on Westwood Boulevard and - "

"No!" she blurts out.

"Juliet, I'm at a _payphone."_

"Jack, I'm - " _I'm WHAT? I'm finally getting laid again and I don't want you to find out? I don't want to hurt you? I don't want you to know because somehow I bizarrely feel like I'm actually doing something wrong?_ "Can you give me half an hour?"

"Juliet, I have to get to the_ hospital."_

"I'm really sorry. Just give me... fifteen minutes. Please."

"OK. Fifteen minutes."

They hang up, and Patrick is watching her uncertainly. "Patrick, I'm really really sorry, but Jack is - "

"I know. It's OK." He's already collecting his clothes, prepared to get kicked out, but before he heads for the bathroom, he leans over to kiss her one last time. Juliet lets herself flop back in bed after that for a minute or two, trying to figure out what happened last night, exactly, and whether or not this all means she's supposed to be happy now.

* * *

On Thursday evening Jack's car is parked outside the Shephards' when Juliet goes to get David. She lets herself in, as Margo has insisted repeatedly it's OK to do, not sure what she's going to find, some sort of crisis, or on-going argument, or what. Instead, Margo's reading a magazine at the kitchen island, a glass of white wine in front of her, dinner on the stove. "Jack's out with David in the sunroom," she says by way of greeting. "Tell him you're all welcome to stay for dinner."

Jack's...? "Does he come here a lot when David's here?"

Margo rolls her eyes. "I'm still not sure how he's got enough time for school."

The sunroom is lined on two sides with rows of windows from the main part of the house, bunches of artfully arranged linen curtains falling perfectly. She sees them on a wicker couch, under one of the windows, and Jack's got David in his lap. David alternates between stuffing his foot in his mouth and trying to turn the pages of the book Jack's reading to him.

_"Wynken, Blynken and Nod one night_  
_ Sailed off in a wooden shoe_  
_ Sailed on a river of crystal light,_  
_ Into a sea of dew._  
_ 'Where are you going, and what do you wish?'_  
_ The old moon asked the three._  
_ 'We have come to fish for the herring fish_  
_ That live in this beautiful sea;_  
_ Nets of silver and gold have we!'_  
_ Said Wynken,_  
_ Blynken_  
_ and Nod._

_The old moon laughed and sang a song,_  
_ As they rocked in the wooden shoe,_  
_ And the wind that sped them all night long_  
_ Ruffled the waves of dew._  
_ The little stars were the herring fish_  
_ That lived in that beautiful sea_  
_ 'Now cast your nets wherever you wish_  
_ Never afeard are we';_  
_ So cried the stars to the fishermen three:_  
_ Wynken,_  
_ Blynken_  
_ and Nod._

_All night long their nets they threw_  
_ To the stars in the twinkling foam_  
_ Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,_  
_ Bringing the fishermen home;_  
_ It was all so pretty a sail it seemed_  
_ As if it could not be,_  
_ And some folks thought it was a dream they'd dreamed_  
_ Of sailing that beautiful sea__..."_

Juliet almost can't breathe as it all hits her at once, the ways Jack is trying to be for her, for David of course, but also for her. She covers her mouth with both hands, and neither of them have seen her yet, as he reads and she stand here on the other side of this half-open window, and does she have a boyfriend now, or -

Then the curtain moves and David looks up, beaming as he points at her. "Mama!" he crows, rocking against Jack.

Jack twists around, sees her there with her eyes suddenly full of tears. How did that happen? He glances down at the book, then back to her. She reaches up, presses her fingers to the pane of glass. He half-stands, David on his hip, the book falling to the couch.

His fingers meet hers on the other side of the glass.

* * *

**I know I never ask this, but... what do you folks what to happen now? I have a couple of scenarios in my mind, like Jack finds out about Patrick (ZOMG), etc., but... tell me what you want to see, and I'll see what I can do.** **Something is definitely, definitely brewing with Jack and Juliet now.**


	46. Hulk Sad

**Thank you all so much for your feedback and suggestions! I've incorporated several of your ideas into this and the next chapter, and ****I've figured out how this is all going to go.**

* * *

_"We don't say everything that we could_  
_so that we can say later_  
_'Oh, you misunderstood.'_  
_I hold my cards up_  
_close to my chest._  
_I say what I have to_  
_and I hold back the rest."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Anticipate"

* * *

She feels laid bare before him, a thousand times more naked than she felt with Patrick the other night. It's probably just as well Jack doesn't want her, or, no, it's not like she's ever really known that for sure, but she's not sure how she could stand to feel this translucent day after day without end. It would mean being that shaking crying girl all over again, trapped in the booth of unfamiliar restaurant that first night, being comforted by a stranger who later turned into Jack.

But she's trained herself to be the kind of person who doesn't need saving anymore, who goes out and Finds Her Own Life. Somehow everything that's happened between them has led her to put up all sorts of walls, and keeping that lonely crying eighteen-year-old girl from coming back has translated into keeping Jack out, too.

All the same, it's not like she's never thought about it. That kiss after she got her MCAT scores - and she's still not even sure who kissed whom -

_I mean, who didn't see that coming?_

The night she was drunk, well, that was humiliating, and of course he pushed her away. But the last thing they need is to screw up David's life if things get too tense or weird, and _really_, as she stands here at this window with her hand pressed up against Jack's through the glass, what does she think is supposed to happen now? She's moved on, right? Standing here with stupid tears in her eyes like a crybaby because Jack's reading David a poem?

The moment expires when Jack pulls his hand away, bringing David with him through the French doors, back into the main part of the house. "Are you all right?" he's asking her, his forehead furrowed. "What happened?"

David reaches out his arms for her and she takes him, holds him close to her, warm and comforting and solid.

"I'm sorry," she chokes out.

Jack shakes his head, not understanding. "You want to sit down?" Somehow he guides the three of them back out to the wicker couch on the sunroom, David pulling on her hair, the strap of her tank top.

"Amamama!" He's pointing to his collection of trucks, starts babbling away.

Juliet's wiping her eyes as discreetly as she can, remembers how much it had scared her as a child to see her mother crying. "That's wonderful, baby. Can you show me the red one?" She puts David on the floor and he crawls over to the pile, getting distracted as she'd assumed he would. She turns back to Jack. "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you about leaving him here with your parents. I guess I just wanted to pretend it was OK. You're... are you here a lot?"

"When I can be," he admits. "Not as much as I'd like."

"I'm sorry that you feel like you need to protect him from them. He seems to love them, though. He's excited to see them, when I bring him here."

Jack sighs heavily, leaning against the couch. "I know," he says almost sadly.

"It started with the car, Jack. You were right about it. I just... We can't afford a babysitter for all the time I need, and I don't know what to do." And here she is, a couple months away from having a college degree. In... _biology_. Big deal. It's not like she'd be able to show up at some accounting firm or ad agency mid-May and apply for some high-paying job like other students about to graduate. What had Juliet been _thinking?_She should have switched to nursing, or education. Something that could be nearly over and done with by now. The stupid '90s; aren't women supposed to be able to have it all? "I was being selfish."

"What are you talking about?"

"Med school, I shouldn't be doing this. It was a stupid plan. I should be getting a job, I could be starting a career and instead - "

"Juliet, I got an internship offer at Columbia."

The air in the room somehow goes very, very still. "What?" Juliet practically whispers. She fixates on her chipped nail polish because she's not sure she can handle looking anywhere else right now.

"For an internship, it's one of the best-paying in the country. It's still not a lot, but at least it's something. David would be taken care of while you're in med school. You could afford a regular sitter for him, none of all the switching around you have to do now - or daycare, however you want to work it out, but - we can't keep depending on my parents. David needs a father who can provide for him "

"No," she breathes. "David needs you here."_ I need you_ _here_, she doesn't say. She's not supposed to.

Jack rubs at his forehead. He looks almost near tears. "I want to do what's best for him."

She lays a hand on his arm. "Jack. I know you do. But what's best for him is... look, you and I didn't exactly come from the best family situations. But every day, one of us is there for David, as much as we can be. If you go to New York, you really want him to know you as a check that comes in the mail?"

"No, of course I don't want that," he chokes out.

"Do you have any offers here? UCLA?"

Jack leans forward, resting his elbows on both knees, bowing his head for a minute. "UCLA? State run, pays next to nothing. Enough for me to live on, not enough to support David. But..."

Juliet feels sick now, she knows suddenly what's coming. She's not stupid.

"St. Sebastian made me an offer," he says into his hands. "Better the devil you know, right?"

"I don't know about that," she says uncertainly. What are they supposed to do?

"What about you?" he asks suddenly, sitting back against the couch again, like they're just dropping the subject of Jack's Horrifyingly Depressing Future Working With His Father all together now. "Have you gotten in anywhere yet?"

She shakes her head. Stanford, Duke and Chicago had rejected her. She should have known better, really. Her MCATs were astronomical, her grades were excellent, but she didn't have the volunteer work or shadowing experience of her peers, and she certainly hadn't been able to afford plane tickets for in-person interviews. Anyone who said phone interviews didn't count against you was obviously lying. Not that the face-to-face interview had helped at Stanford, anyway... And she'd gone in person to all the UCs she'd applied to, except San Francisco. UC-Davis had been a trek. And, anyway, Northwestern, Michigan, Case-Western, Baylor and Wisconsin still need to reject her. "Not yet. As long as I can stay around here, I will."

"You didn't just happen to apply anywhere in New York, did you?" Jack cracks a wry grin now, and Juliet can't help but smile.

"Unfortunately, I did not. Maybe we could get a map and throw darts at it."

"With our luck, we'd end up somewhere in the middle of the ocean." Jack's smile fades as he thinks. "You really think I shouldn't go to New York?"

"You really want to leave David?"

"Not at all."

"I don't want you to leave, either." Then she realizes what she just said, clears her throat. "David needs you _here_. I meant what I said. This isn't about money. Maybe I could split babysitting with some other mother, I don't know. When do you have to let them know?"

Jack runs a hand over his face. "Not until May first."

"We have time, still."

Jack nods uncertainly. Juliet can't remember the last time she felt like the confident one.

* * *

David's been picking up the phone all morning, and it's driving her crazy. He's up on his tip-toes, pulling on the cord and dragging the receiver off her desk for what seems like the fifteenth time today when she scoops him up. "Want to get the mail with Mama?" she asks him. Scolding isn't working; maybe distraction will.

But he only scowls, pointing at the phone. "NO!"

"C'mon, baby, let's go get the mail. Can you help Mama carry the mail?" Juliet starts talking to him about the mailman like the one on Sesame Street, and she lifts David up to press the elevator button, which makes him awfully happy. Down in the lobby her hand is shaking hard enough that it's almost difficult to get the key in the lock of her mailbox; it's just that she hasn't gotten anything from the med schools in a few days and she's got to be due.

Sure enough, her box is crammed full, and she actually tosses the sales circulars and junk mail and bills right on the floor of the lobby. David gives a big belly laugh at that, but she's just staring, her heart hammering in her chest, because yes, there's a thin, regular-size envelope from Baylor, and two massively thick, substantial, beautiful beautiful beautiful _beautiful _ envelopes from UCLA and USC.

Juliet can barely breathe, closing her eyes in silent gratitude for as long as she dares, which isn't all that long at all considering David is walking now, and the last thing she needs is for him to wander out to the curb and hail a cab. "Do you know what these are?" she breathes out to him once she opens her eyes again.

David, meanwhile, has squatted down and is crumpling up a sales circular from Kroger that Juliet had dropped in her haste.

Back up in her apartment, Juliet reads through the contents of those thick envelopes, smiling against her hand, ignoring David as he pulls the phone off the hook until he tries to actually put the receiver in his mouth. She glances at the clock; nothing's on TV, but Patrick had left the rented "Sesame Street" movie the other night. _Hmm..._

With David safely distracted now, she goes back to the packets, first UCLA and then USC. Her excitement dampens somewhat. Her dad had paid for about half of her undergraduate tuition but she's on her own for medical school. USC is willing to give her a small living stipend, there's loans, and she'll qualify for the Pell Grant because she'll be Head of Household now, and she is definitely definitely Head of a Low-Income Family _(awesome),_ but the Pell Grant is only $2,400 per year.

UCLA is a tiny bit better, all of that and an extra $1,500 annual scholarship. Fifteen hundred dollars, well, that should cover...? Two semesters off books and maybe her lab fees. So that's going to mean a lot, a lot a lot a LOT of loans. She'd really been hoping for a more substantial scholarship.

It doesn't matter, though. At least she got in somewhere. Here. She can stay here, that's what she wanted! Great! _Yay!_

The intercom starts buzzing as she's staring off into the distance, and David turns his head toward the sound, his face spreading out into a grin. Juliet steps over, depresses the button, and it's Patrick's voice on the intercom, asking to come up.

"Hey, what's -" she begins, and Patrick's all excited about something, stepping into the apartment, placing a hand on her right hip, the other under her chin and kissing her. "Patrick - " She nods her head over to David, who's sitting on the rug, gazing up at them distrustfully.

"Oh - oh oh oh, sorry, I just, I don't know, I guess I thought maybe he wouldn't, I don't know." Patrick is flustered now. "Hey, little guy." He turns back to Juliet. "Listen, that's OK, I just got some tickets to the Dodgers game, it's opening day today - do you want to come? Great weather, and we can bring David, I mean, if you think he'd like it, if you don't, I mean, I can just get some friends, or I can give the tickets away if you want to chill here, or - I'm sorry, were you doing anything right now?"

She giggles a little at his over-earnestness, this puppy-like desire to please. But all the awhile, her mind is working. If Jack finds out someone else took David to his first baseball game... No, no, she can't. He'd be crushed. "Patrick... I can't. I... I just found out I got into med school - "

"What? You did?" His face breaks out into a grin. "That's awesome, where?"

"Here and USC. But the financials - I really need to work it all out as soon as I can. You go, have fun."

He looks doubtful. "Are you sure? Don't you want to be able to tell David you took him to opening day when he was only a year old?"

"Maybe when he's two," she assures him.

"Want to do dinner tonight?"

"Jack's going to have him, actually."

"We could go out, then. Around... seven?"

"Well... Jack's only going to have him until after dinner." Jack's planning to bring David over to Ray's this afternoon. Ray needs help with yardwork, he's been struggling lately to keep up with it all, and then they're going to have some manly barbecuing bonding time. Four generations minus the most dysfunctional one.

Juliet and Patrick make plans for an early dinner; the game's at one so Patrick says he'll just circle back around then. "Um..." Patrick's eyes slide back over to David, who's engrossed in the TV again. He dares to lean over and peck Juliet on the check. "See you then."

* * *

Patrick's up behind her, pressing a kiss up against the back of her neck as she slides her key into the lock of her apartment after dinner, when they hear the unmistakeable ding of the elevator, and Juliet practically jumps a mile.

Sure enough, Jack's got David and the diaper bag, and now he's standing in the hallway staring at them like he just walked in on them screwing or something. Juliet feels Patrick's eyes on her and she knows he's judging the distance she's just automatically put between them._ I'm sorry,_ she wants to say to him, for everything she has or hasn't done, or will or won't.

"Hi, guys," Juliet says to them in a shaky voice.

Jack's still staring at Patrick, but he bends down and deposits David on the hallway carpet. He staggers over to Juliet perfectly happily and she picks him up.

No one's saying anything yet. "Did you have fun with your Grandpa Ray?" she asks David.

"Uh... Patrick Casey, nice to meet you," Patrick finally says, extending a hand to Jack.

Jack doesn't shake. Juliet's not exactly surprised by that. "Patrick, I'm sorry, could you - do you think you could watch David inside for a minute? Just turn on the Big Bird thing again if you don't know what to do with him."

Patrick hesitates for a minute. Juliet imagines him fleeing for the elevator, his arms flailing over his head, screaming at the top of his lungs. Instead, he nods bravely and she awkwardly deposits David into his arms. The door closes, the sound echoing down the hall, and she turns to Jack. This is going to be one of those times she fakes bravery. "All right, let's have it."

"Who is that?"

"That was Patrick."

"He already said that, Juliet." Jack's voice is rising now. "You're seeing him?"

"Yes."

"How long?"

"Jack, I -"

"How long?"

"A few weeks now."

Jack lets out a long, heavy breath, the kind that sounds like he's been saving up all the carbon dioxide in his lungs for the better part of five minutes. "A few weeks? And you already have him around David? Are you serious about him? Do you love him?"

She's a little floored by the thought, even. "Jack, it's a little early to - "

"So you don't love him. So what's that going to do to David when you break up?"

_Thanks for having faith in my ability to maintain a healthy relationship._ "Jack, my friend Matt is also over at the apartment a lot, and I don't hear you worrying about the fact that we probably won't live next door to him until David grows up."

"That's different." Jack's nostrils flare. "Does he stay over? You have a one-bedroom apartment!"

"No. He doesn't."

"He doesn't at all, or he doesn't when David is here?" Jack challenges.

"I don't see where that's any of your business," she returns. "Don't try to tell me that these mysterious 'plans' you always have are you hanging out with your grandfather. Because I'm fairly certain that if they were, you'd just _tell_ me you were hanging out with your grandfather. I'm allowed to have a life, too, Jack. I'm twenty-one years old, for God's sake. I'm not the Virgin Mary."

Jack is all angry energy now, pacing the dark, narrow hallway like he's going to kick the walls, about to burst out of his clothing like the Hulk, and she almost _(almost)_ wants to laugh. Except there's also a little tiny piece of her that also wants to cry, especially when he turns back to her, running a hand over the top of his head and lets out another one of those long breaths. "I _have_ been seeing people. Not anyone special. And this - this Patrick. As long as he's all right to be around David, I... I want you to be happy."

He swallows hard, and then he's hurrying down the hall, and she's just standing there by herself, and she doesn't feel very happy at all.

But at least she's starting to understand why.


	47. Downtown

_"But then what kind of scale_  
_compares the weight of two beauties,_  
_the gravity of duties_  
_or the ground speed of joy?_  
_Tell me what kind of gauge_  
_can quantify elation?_  
_What kind of equation_  
_could I possibly employ?"_

- Ani DiFranco, "School Night"

* * *

Juliet's almost a little afraid to enter her own apartment, and Patrick's standing by her desk, hovering awkwardly over David who's leaning up on his tiptoes yet again, reaching for the phone. "I kept telling him no but he was getting all upset," Patrick tells her uncertainly.

"It's OK." She steps forward, untwines the cord from David's fingers as he whines. "Sorry about Jack. He doesn't have a key anymore, but someone must have let him in the lobby."

"So... what's...?" Patrick steps back awkwardly as Juliet picks up David. "What's - "

Except David keeps amping up the volume as he twists downward, trying to get at the phone, and his face his twisting up into a scowl now, lips trembling; she's really going to have to go out and get him one of those Fisher-Price toy phones as soon as possible. "Patrick, I'm really sorry, he's about to... hang on." David lets out a wail, right on cue. _Shit, shit, shit._ This is _not_ the way tonight was supposed to go, and Jack was here at _least_ half an hour early, and David really is a second away from pitching an out-and-out tantrum now. She hauls him into the bedroom, flips on the bedside radio to the oldies station and drags out his toy piano, half-hidden under her bed.

Distract! Distract! Distract!

After a couple of minutes, the crisis is averted, and he's dragging his toy horse over the rainbow-colored piano keys. A hokey old '60s song is playing. "Downtown," she thinks it's called.

_(When you've got worries,_  
_All the noise and the hurry_  
_Seems to help, I know, downtown!)_

Juliet looks up from the floor to see Patrick watching from the doorway. For some reason she feels intensely uncomfortable playing this role in front of him. She's used to it with most people in her life, Jack of course, or her friends or even her sister. In fact, 'role' isn't even the right word, usually. It's _not_ a role, it's just a part of who she is by now. A huge part. But Patrick is one of the first people she's met on her own terms since David was born. She thought she was supposed to feel sexy again with him, desirable. Instead she's sitting on the floor floor playing with her toddler.

Great date night. "I'm sorry."

Patrick shrugs uncomfortably. "Kids cry. But... that's twice now you've pushed me away because of Jack."

"I didn't push..." she tries to begin, peters out. "I was just trying to make this as easy on him as possible." She wishes he would sit down next to her, but she can't get up; David's got the fingers of his left hand hooked around the straps of her sandal and the tears on his face haven't even dried.

Patrick doesn't move. "How long were you together?"

"About... eight months?"

"So you broke up even before he was born."

"Technically, before he was conceived."

Patrick sort of shakes his head, and she feels a flush rise to her face. What are she and Jack supposed to tell _David_ about all this some day? Not the _exact_ truth, she hopes. "We broke up, and I threw away my pills, and then... I guess we thought... we'd see each other one last time before summer, and, and... we drank too much and..." She nods her head toward David. _Dumbest and best mistake I ever made._

"Jeez."

Juliet nods, not quite meeting his eyes, not sure why he's asking her all this right now, and she really doesn't feel like talking about any of it. Not now, not tonight.

"So, um... should I just get going? I mean...?" Patrick nods toward David. "I don't know how this all works. Like stories or bath time or whatever."

"I guess so." Weren't they just supposed to be having fun? Keeping this light? She usually gives David his baths in the mornings, but she doesn't think she can be with Patrick tonight and she fakes a smile, or at least it feels partially like a smile, and partially like she just had a stroke and the muscles in her face are pretty much paralyzed.

"I'll, um, I'll call you later." Patrick hesitates, and then he leans down and kisses her chastely on the cheek. She stays there on the floor with David, listening as he opens and closes the front door of her apartment.

David looks up abruptly. "Bye-bye!" he trills, quite cheerful all of a sudden.

Juliet touches the side of her face and laughs.

* * *

The papers cover her kitchen table and she's read each of them over at least twice, and she's still not sure she can believe her eyes.

_The University of Michigan Medical School is pleased to offer you a full merit scholarship in honor of your outstanding academic achievement. This scholarship offer includes four years of tuition, laboratory and administrative fees, and an annual allowance for textbooks. We are also delighted to offer you a stipend of five thousand dollars ($5,000.00) per annum for living expenses, in exchange for a work-study fellowship to be determined by the university. _

_We hope this offer will encourage you to strongly consider joining us this fall semester as a member of the Class of 1996. At the University of Michigan Medical School we educate individuals to provide exemplary patient care and graduate physicians who assume leadership roles in the areas of medical practice, research and teaching, _blah blah blah blah...

"What the hell?" Juliet finally says out loud to her empty apartment.

She's never set foot in Ann Arbor in her life. Sure, U-M is a fantastic medical school, and it's a Top 10 in the field of women's health, which is something she's been thinking about more and more lately. But it was a long shot to begin with - and that wasn't counting the fact that she hadn't been able to attend Interview Day there in person.

And now they're offering her a full scholarship, _plus_ five thousand bucks a year? This entire thing is bizarre. But then even her phone interviews were strange, now that Juliet thinks about it. Definitely not like any of the others she'd had, that was for damn sure.

The first phoner was normal, she'll give them that. But then, maybe two weeks later she'd gotten a second call out of the blue. The caller had introduced himself as Gerald... what? De something? Juliet tries to remember. DeGregory? No, that doesn't sound right.

"I'm a professor of mathematics and astrophysics at the university," he'd told her. "Your application was passed along to me by the medical school."

She'd held the phone away from her ear for a second, screwing up her face at the receiver. That didn't make any sense. Still, she wanted to get into school, anywhere she could, right. "How can I help you, Dr. DeGroot?" Yes, that was it, she remembers now. Gerald DeGroot.

"Ah... sometimes, sometimes when the medical school is reviewing particularly well-rounded applicants, they like to share the applications with other departments for a follow-up interview. I see here you've taken some interesting courses. Lots of higher work in physics. And two years of Latin, very impressive. I see you graduated high school in Miami. Did you speak Spanish at all?"

"Yes, I... I took Spanish in high school." What the heck?

"And you could have gone for the easy A's for your foreign language requirement at UCLA. But you took Latin instead. Not an easy endeavor. May I ask why?"

"I thought it could help me in medical school. And..." She'd rattled off some answer about Latin not really being a dead tongue if you thought about it, that Latin words were at the root of so much of modern language. Was that the kind of thing he wanted to hear?

He'd started asking her about her work in physics, which Juliet personally hadn't found all that impressive, but whatever. Hell, her minor is literature, not physics. Sure, she'd taken more physics courses than were required to graduate. She tried to sound enthusiastic about physics anyway. Then he'd asked her about the Valen-something equation. Jesus, she'd never even heard of it.

DeGroot had only chuckled a little. "Don't worry, not many people have. So... I see you also took a course in Greek mythology. Big research paper in that course, yes?"

That was first semester sophomore year. Why would he even be interested in that? She wasn't sure what she was supposed to say to that. "Yes, it was fascinating." (It was horrendously boring.) "We hear about all these myths in passing, but in going back to the sources - "

"Yes, yes, it's quite interesting," he'd interrupted her, almost a little breathlessly. "And tell me, tell me about your paper."

_Thiiiis is so fucking weird,_ she thought. But oh god, she could barely remember. "It was on the myth of the Hydra," she'd said slowly. Trying to remember. Heracles, covering his face to try to protect himself from the poisonous gases. Shooting flaming arrows at the monster. _Shit._ Why was he asking her about some paper she'd written more than two years ago? Slowly she'd dredged up the topic from the recesses of her memory, hoping she sounded at least reasonably intelligent.

"And you graduated high school in Miami. Must be a fan of the warm climates, I see, since you headed off to L.A. And were you born in there? In Miami?"

O...K? It was time for small talk now? Shouldn't he have led off with that? She'd glanced at the clock, worrying David could wake from his nap any minute now. "Actually, I was born in Maine. We moved when I was nine."

"Maine," he'd echoed, sounding confused. "Really, whereabouts?"

"Oh, Portland."

There was a long pause, and DeGroot had started coughing. She could hear him moving away from the phone, knocking something over, shuffling papers. A few seconds later he was back on the line. "I'm - the - you must excuse me, I just took a sip of c-coffee and it went down the wrong way," he'd spluttered, and she'd assured him it was fine. But after that he'd begun a long stream of increasingly personal questions that had absolutely nothing to do with academics, about her parents, her sister, her note explaining her thinned-out course schedule junior year, David, even Jack. _Jesus. _She felt like she had no choice but to answer them.

When it was all over, Juliet had hung up the phone shakily. What in the _hell_ had all that been about?

* * *

So now she's staring at these papers on the table. Her letter of acceptance to U-M. The scholarship offer. The shiny brochures on the medical school; research opportunities; work-study. A packet on life in Ann Arbor, including a list of apartment buildings, phone numbers for rental agencies.

Juliet feels like she's swinging wildly between elation and nausea. Like they're just dangling this shiny shiny object over her head, and there's no way in a million years she can take it. She was fine with sending in the application. Fine with the first phone interview. Even, sort of, fine with that overly invasive, weird, rambling second phoner.

_(Why were you fine with those things? It seems like quite a leap for a job opportunity. I mean, we're not paying you that much. I think you're fine because, deep down, a part of you knows that the place we're taking you to is special.) _

She's dizzy with whatever's ringing around in her head. And now that it's all laid out in front of her, and she can't do it... she just never should have gone down this path in the first place. Why had she even applied? What the hell was she going to do in Ann Arbor, anyway? It's not fair. It's not, it's not fair, why hadn't she and Jack just _communicated_ about all of this, and now she feels angry tears welling up in her eyes.

* * *

Her phone rings that night and she's half-expecting Patrick, only it's Jack on the other line, and he sounds like he's standing in the middle of traffic. She plugs a finger into her other ear, trying to block out the noise David's making. "Where are you?"

"I'm - " muffling noises, like the wind whipping into the receiver - "south campus. You mind if " - more wind, stupid payphones, call from _inside_ somewhere, Jack - "over to put David to bed?"

"Sure."

When the intercom goes off a few minutes later, David's face lights up at the sound, and she gets it now, she does. Remembering when he'd done that a few days ago, and the way he'd scowled when their visitor hadn't been Jack at all. She hits the button, buzzes him up.

Jack's forehead crimped up in some struggle she's not privy to. He lifts David, holds him tight. "Thanks," Jack says after a moment.

"No problem. I, um... I'm gonna run to the bathroom." She doesn't actually have to go, but she just needs to by by herself for a minute, and she doesn't know what's going on with Jack, exactly, but he looks like he could use baby cuddling time, anyway. She stares at herself in the mirror, trying to psyche herself up for... whatever.

_(When you're alone,_  
_And life is making you lonely,_  
_You can always go... downtown.)_

Just not downtown Ann Arbor. She snorts at her reflection, goes back out.

Except Jack's got David on his hip and he's hovering over the documents spread out on her table. "Juliet, this is..." he begins slowly, blinking.

"What are you doing?" She rushes over, trying to gather up the papers. "That's private."

He grabs her wrist, and her stomach flips. "You got a full scholarship?" he asks in wonderment.

Juliet stops what she's doing, but she doesn't let go of the papers. Just looks up into his face from where she is. "It's OK, don't worry. I'm not going."

Jack shakes his head, just once, his mouth dropping open just a millimeter. "I don't understand." David squirms against him, whining now to get down, and Jack bends down, putting him on the kitchen floor.

Did Jack not see where this wonderful, amazing, magical 'But Wait, There's More! CALL NOW!' offer _came_ from? She holds up a handful of documents, pointing at the insignia at the top of the first page. She tilts her head, waiting. "It's from Michigan," she finally prompts.

He wilts a little, then. "I know. I saw. I - I can still take the offer in New York. It's a great opportunity for you."

Of course it is. And it's also not the exactly that simple; she's already shaking her head before he's even finished speaking. "I meant what I said, Jack. David needs you. I'm not taking him away from you."

Tears spring to his eyes, and he half-turns away for a second, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Are you all right?" she asks gently. Not knowing what else she's supposed to do now. (Is Patrick never calling her again? Is she supposed to talk to Jack about... _stuff?)_

"Yeah," Jack answers, his voice wobbly. "Just, um, you know." He looks awkward, embarrassed, and she decides to take a stab in the dark.

"Girl trouble?"

Jack bursts out with a quiet, too-short laugh, nodding. He looks teary, again. Her stomach flips, again.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Not really," he admits.

"Wanna go put David to bed?"

He runs a hand over his face. "Yeah."

"You hungry?"

"Yeah," he says again.

"Go read him his story and put him to bed. I'll make some grilled cheese, OK? I think we can catch the end of the Dodgers game on TV. Then you can tell me everything I need to know about UCLA Med." The prospect of all this sounds a lot better, somehow, than pretty much any date night she's been on recently.

He must think so too, because he gives her this kind of smile that... well... after he brings David into the bedroom, shoving those papers from Michigan into the bottom drawer of her desk doesn't seem so hard after all.

_(The lights are much brighter there_.  
_You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go_  
_Downtown, where all the lights are bright,_  
_Downtown, waiting for you tonight,_  
_Downtown, you're gonna be all right now.)_

And they eat grilled cheese and hang out on her couch and watch the end of the game. He asks her how Patrick is and she tries to brush off the question. They look through the course catalog for M1s and 2s at UCLA. Jack circles the names of his favorite instructors for her.

* * *

Patrick calls her two days later, asks to meet her in the quad. She figures she's about to get dumped, and this calls for looking her best. She blowdries her hair straight like Rachel taught her.

They sit at one of those outdoor chess tables. It's so formal. This is humiliating. Couldn't he have done this over the phone.

"Can we just... I just need to figure out, like..." he begins.

"Figure out what?" So he's not breaking up with her? At least not yet? Is that what she wanted? Jesus.

"You and Jack, I... I mean, you never tried to get back together? How long's it been, like two years?"

She nods.

"You act like..."

"Like what?" Juliet manages.

Patrick doesn't say anything for a long moment, shifting his weight on the marble seat. Juliet traces one of the black squares with her fingertip.

"So is two years long enough to get over someone?" Patrick finally asks.

Her mind unspools to all the times she's been angry with Jack, indifferent, frustrated. The way he wished her a _congratulations_ for his own damn baby. All those mysterious 'plans' he's had over the months while he's gone out with who knows how many different girls, or the way he kept her waiting when she needed to get to her study group. Had she gotten over Jack, way back once upon a time? "Absolutely."

Patrick shifts his weight again. "So you're saying you don't have feelings for him?"

But that's an entirely different question. And her mind lays out all those other times she's been impatient to share some piece of good news, some good grade of hers, or some new milestone in David's life. The day David had started walking, the day she got her MCAT scores, the day Rachel had called with good test results. And then there was that evening she found him reading David that damn poem, when David was really more concerned with fitting all his toes in his mouth.

Juliet moves her eyes from the chess table. "I don't know," she finally croaks.

Patrick turns away slightly, running a hand through his hair. "I really - I just really liked you, Juliet."

"Past tense?"

"I guess so." The traffic through the trees seems muted, somehow.

"Listen. I don't... I never wanted to be one of those girls who just goes back and forth between two guys because she doesn't know what she's doing. Like she's just trying to fill some empty part of her. That's... that's not what I'm trying to do. Just so you know."

His voice rises now. "Then what the hell were you doing with me?"

"I was trying to let go. Move on from Jack."

"That's what you want?"

"I thought so."

"And now you're changing your mind?"

"I don't even know if he feels that way about me."

"I saw his face when he came off the elevator," Patrick says miserably. "Um... shit. You take care, OK?" He nods once, and then he's standing, and he's gone.

So much for moving on.

* * *

So is she supposed to talk to Jack about this? Or are they just supposed to go on forever with the way things are now? Moving on didn't work. Stagnation doesn't exactly seem pleasant. But could they ever actually just escape the shadows of their families and just manage to be happy on their own? And that's if it even worked.

At least now David doesn't know any other way, she thinks as she tries to sort her index cards for class, pretending she doesn't see him trying to sneak the phone cord off her desk yet again. She doesn't have time for a tantrum right now. If she and Jack were together and it didn't work out, David would have to go through that right along with them this time.

(Of course she's ignoring the main problem. Namely: She is really, really, really, really afraid.)

"David, sweetie, please put the phone down," Juliet tries.

David whines, but when he tries to put his mouth on the receiver, she's off the couch, index cards abandoned. She doesn't need her phone busted by drool. He screeches as she pulls the phone away from him. "No!" he blurts out, starting to cry.

Why, why, why has she not found one of those toy phones yet? Or got a phone she could hang up high on the wall? For the love of all that is good and holy. "That is not a toy, baby." But he's still grabbing at the cord, tangling it in his fingers as she's pulling him away, lifting him up. "No no no no! _Dada!"_

She stills, her hands under his armpits, his feet flailing wildly a few inches off the ground. David keeps wriggling in her grasp, big crocodile tears in his eyes. "Dada!"

"You want... you want to talk to your daddy?" she breathes.

David lurches over, his hands grasping the air over the phone. "Dada," he whimpers miserably.

Juliet dials Jack's number, a lump in her throat. _"Hi, you've reached Jack Shephard. I'm not here to take your call..."_

Now what? "Jack, it's Juliet. There's someone here who was demanding to speak to you. Hang on a second." She holds the phone out for David, who tries to pull it away. Somehow she gets him to compromise, both of them holding it, and he babbles into the phone. After a minute, once he realizes there's no Jack actualy on the other end of the line, he starts to cry again, but Juliet knows there were at least a couple of _dada_s in there.

The phone clonks back onto the base. "You're a stubborn one," she tells David.

He smiles through his tears, like he understands exactly what she means.

* * *

Not long after, she gets them both ready, drops off David at Amy Goodspeed's and heads off to class. Then it's the moment she's been waiting for/dreading: depositing the last-minute savior of a $300 check from her dad so she can give UCLA Med the sacred four hundred bucks to hold a spot for her. It's so late in April by now - April 29 - that it's a good thing she can simply walk her check over to the registrar's office.

Juliet gets to the bank without too much trouble; for some reason traffic is incredibly light for this late in the afternoon.

_(Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city._  
_Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty._  
_How can you lose? )_

She deposits the money from her dad, but then there's a snag. She wants a cashier's check because she can't risk a regular check not clearing in time, and only a manager can sign a cashier's check.

"You ladies know where Marguerite is?" her teller is asking over her shoulder.

The other bank employees are clustered around a small transistor radio. One of them flutters a hand into the air, her eyebrows crimped together. "Hang on a second."

Juliet's teller rolls her eyes and grabs the phone, dials an extension. They wait and wait. Finally one of the radio listeners waves over the teller. They whisper together. Juliet shifts from one foot to another, glancing at the clock. She should have timed this better. It's 4:45. It's just she had class and - is she going to have to come back tomorrow? What a pain. She shouldn't have let this go so long.

Finally another one of the employees approaches her at the counter. Nametag: Lucy.

_Lucy, can you please help me or not?_

"Honey, I think you need to head home."

"I... I'm sorry?"

Lucy nods back toward the radio. "Those police officers. The ones who have been on trial, for beating the black man? They just got acquitted."

OK... wait... what? It's not like she hasn't heard about this, everyone knows about it, and she's a little shocked that they really would have been acquitted, considering the videotapes. They'd been played on the news, over and over. But... why does this mean she needs to go home? "I don't understand."

Lucy glances over at the plate glass windows that look out onto the street. "People are angry. They're saying - they're saying on the radio that there's hundreds of people outside the courthouse. Protesting, but... they're starting to riot in South Central. You need to get home."

Juliet glances out at the street, now, too. Everything looks fine. "All right," she says slowly.

"Come back tomorrow. I'm sure everything will be fine by then."

_(Downtown, things'll be great when you're_  
_Downtown, don't wait a minute more,_  
_Downtown, everything's waiting for you.)_


	48. Riot Proof

**Excerpts from media taken (er, "borrowed shamelessly") from YouTube clips of actual news reports from April 29, 1992.**

**And in going for the copyright-violation triple-whammy, chapter title is taken from the Tori Amos song of the same name. Let's hear it for female musicians who rose to prominence in the 1990s!  
**

* * *

_"I think guilt and innocence, _  
_they are a matter of degree._  
_What might be justice to you _  
_might not be justice to me._  
_I went too far, I'm sorry,_  
_I guess now I'm going home_  
_so let any amongst you cast the first stone._  
_Now we've got all these complicated machines_  
_so no one person ever has to have blood on their hands._  
_We've got complex organizations_  
_and if everyone just does their job,_  
_no one person has to understand." _

- Ani DiFranco, "Crime for Crime"

* * *

The first few blocks are fine. Empty enough to cruise right on down to each intersection, the late-afternoon sunlight flickering down between the buildings. Juliet flips on the radio as she passes another car going in the opposite direction, and the driver gives her a wary look.

_"...However, at the hospitals, it was discussed that we could have busy evenings."_

_"Are you working in conjunction with other hospitals?"_

_"Not right now."_

She slows down for a yellow light. Should she be doing that? But she stops anyway, craning her neck toward the side window, where the courthouse would be, several blocks down. Sure enough, there's a throng of people there, swarming over each other but too far away, really, to see what's going on, exactly.

_"You can handle everything you have there, is that right?"_

_"Yes, that's right."_

Another voice now. _"Well, Mary, give me an idea of some of the kinds of injuries you're seeing."_

_"We're seeing people with cuts from broken glass, all the way to people who have been severely beaten."_

Flipping through the stations, clips of people yelling and chanting alternate with announcers sounding somewhere between concerned and grave and excited. Then another anchor on - _"The uh, the phrase that some people are saying is quite accurate. If you're white, you don't belong here tonight, get - "_

She hits the power button on the radio; the car plunges into silence. The trial wasn't even here in L.A.; they'd moved it somewhere else, she can't even remember. Ventura County, mayb-

The silence explodes into a million pieces when something goes very, very wrong in her backseat, right where David would be if the car seat weren't empty right now, and she swallows a cry as she wrenches around to see two teenagers running toward the car.

She floors it.

* * *

The Goodspeeds live in a tiny, peeling-paint yellow house at the base of the hills. It's a pain to get over there on a good day, but today, with her back window broken, and fear finally having settled in the pulse at the base of her throat, it feels like an eternity and then some.

Amy's weird ex-hippie husband peeks through the peephole at her first, and then he's throwing open the main door and she's wrenching open the screen door, stepping into the house. "Jesus, we were worried about you!" Horace exclaims, running a hand through his unruly hair and then glancing back out at the street like Juliet's brought an invading group of people with her to secretly infiltrate them.

"We were hoping we'd get a call from you saying you were staying wherever you were," Amy adds, bustling through the house with David toddling at her heels.

Horace lowers the volume on the TV: Juliet's first sight of what the hell is going on in this city. Without moving her eyes from the screen, she bends down to pick up David.

The Goodspeeds' teenage son is looking out at her car now. "What happened to your back window?" He sounds awed, a little excited.

"Rock, I think."_ Right where his carseat is_, she can't bring herself to say, pressing a kiss to David's forehead, smoothing her hand over the hand of his head, her blood vessels still saturated with adrenaline. She keeps watching the low-volume TV, swarms of people hurling rocks at cars, other people down in the middle of the street, fighting, being kicked, beaten. Cars stopped crookedly at intersections, doors open.

Amy wraps her fingers around Juliet's shoulder. "You OK, honey?"

Juliet pulls her eyes away from the TV. "I'm fine." And Jack's fine too, wherever he is right now.

"You want to stay here? Or Horace can take you home. Broken window or not, you're not going to drive yourself home."

Horace opens his mouth like he's about to object, closes it again. What does he think, he's just going to live safe and sound forever behind some electric fence like the real world will never find its way in? Then again, Juliet does feel kind of bad for him; here his wife's trying to make extra money baby-sitting ever since Horace got laid off from the university (something about blowing up trees, she heard, although that doesn't make _any_ sense - must be the math department's own version of the Telephone game). And now he's gotta fire up his old van, head out into a rioting city?

"My... my sister will probably call, and..." And where the hell is Jack? What was he doing today? She can't remember. Is he home? Is he safe? But she can call Jack, she can call Rachel, even, and she doesn't want to put David in danger. "If it's not too much trouble. If you think it's safe."

"It's supposed to be perfectly safe between here and Westwood," Amy says, looking straight at Horace. Her voice is tinged with just enough annoyance that Juliet gets the feeling this discussion predated her arrival.

Horace takes them out to his battered old VW van, parked on the far end of their driveway where the asphalt's crumbled and grass is growing up between the cracks. Juliet hunkers down with David in the back; there's no car seat, of course, but then this old hippie bus has no seat belts at all anyway, and the sudden surreality of this day suddenly has laughter bubbling up from her as they take the back streets.

"What's so funny?" Horace asks over his shoulder. He's got an actual fucking eight-track player going, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and for the few months she's known him now, Juliet's always wanted to quiz this guy on exactly what decade he thinks it is. Sure, she likes _playing_ hippie with Rachel and her friends out in Arizona, but that's different. No one's hanging onto the past out there; it's just they have a good time out there, some overwhelmingly happy Hippie Commune Lalala feeling she can't quite put her finger on... Maybe, probably, it's just that feeling of belonging with her sister she'd never really had growing up.

And it's a totally different brand of hippie, OK? It's not like she'd lived it the first time around, like Horace did.

Some people need to let go of the past already.

Anyway, that is _so_ not important to what the hell is going on right now? "Nothing," she answers him, trying to contain herself. David looks delighted to be in this rumbling old van with its shredded upholstery, the peace-sign necklace dangling from the rear-view mirror. "Do you think we should be listening to the news reports?"

"Radio doesn't work anymore."

"Oh." So people are rioting, parts of the the city are plunging into violence, but she's bouncing along in a hippie bus with her toddler on her lap and no seat belts, they have no connection to the outside world, sure, why _not_ laugh about it all? (...Jack's OK, right?)

* * *

She gets home to worried answering-machine message from Rachel and her father, plus one sigh and a click. She tries to call Rachel back. _"We're sorry. All circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later."_

She tries Jack's apartment. _"We're sorry. All circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later."_

"Fantastic," she announces bitterly to David.

A knock at the door, and she rushes over way too quickly. Except it's Stacy from next door, and Juliet can feel the way her face falls.

Stacy folds her arms tightly like she's trying to hug herself. "Thought I heard you come in."

"Someone broke my car window," Juliet says, but that's not what she wants to say at all. _I burned my hand, on my muffins,_ rings out in her head. When has she ever made muffins? At Rachel's, probably. It doesn't matter. There are so, so many things she could always be saying that she isn't.

Stacy's exclaiming over that, asking if she can stay here, she left a note for Matt and she's freaked out and Juliet tells her, yes, yes of course she can stay. "Is your phone working?"

"Not anymore. Talked to my mom in San Pedro like an hour ago. She said it's fine down there."

Jack's fine, too, right? Of course. Yes. Yes, how could be not be all right?

They flip through the channels on Juliet's TV. Overhead helicopter videos of cars parked diagonally across intersections, fights breaking out, smashed windows. A teenager throwing a plastic milk crate against the windows of a city bus; it just bounces off harmlessly and rolls away. Stacy changes the channel; three guys are swarming around a blue car._ "She gets back up, but now they're beating someone on the other side,"_ an unseen female anchor narrates. Doesn't sound shocked or upset or outraged in the least.

A male counterpart cuts in._ "Mr. Reiner earlier tonight called these people"_ - dramatic pause - _"thugs. I suspect he's right on the money."_

_"And you made a good point, too, when you said earlier, that there are people of every color, every race who are - "_

Stacy flips again, as antsy and jittery as Juliet is deathly still. The picture changes, to another helicopter view, and _"Now this is one of the worst incidents we've seen all night. You see this Bronco here, this was taped earlier, and people surrounded the car, they dragged the driver out - "_

_"And beat him bloody. The guy, the poor guy, he never had a chance."_

_"At one point somebody stepped in there and helped him out of there, I'm wondering if this was the radio reporter, the..."_

"Holy shit," Stacy mutters, squinting, leaning in closer. "Where are the fucking police?"

Juliet closes her eyes for a second, trying not to lose it. Trying not to search every one of these shots for a silver Toyota Camry. _Think about something else,_ she reminds herself. David is smacking away at his toy piano. The male anchor starts running down which streets and off-ramps to avoid. A lot of off-ramps on the 110 are dangerous right now, filled with angry hoardes of people. Freeways heading out of the city are jammed.

There's a knock at the door, and they all spin toward the sound. Juliet and Stacy are at the door in seconds, and Matt's at the threshold. Stacy chokes back a sob, throwing her arms around him. Juliet takes a step back, lets go of the door. Averts her eyes to focus on David. "I'm going to try the phone again," she tells them softly, trying to give them privacy.

This time she gets through, only just like this morning with David, Jack's answering machine picks up. She gets Rachel, assures her they're fine, asks her to call their father. Doesn't mention the broken car window. Doesn't mention she has no fucking clue where Jack is, and it's edging up on eight o'clock by now.

Matt and Stacy go home. Gemma rings up on the intercom twenty minutes later. "You hungry?"

"What the hell are you - "

"Are you gonna buzz me up or not?"

Juliet buzzes her up. Gemma's brought food. "This city is going to hell in a handbasket, so I brought a pizza. By the way, classes are canceled tomorrow." Gemma opens the pizza box, reaches over for a paper towel.

"Are you crazy? Are you OK? Why didn't you just call me, or - "

"Juliet." Gemma leans in conspiratorially, like she's about to let her in on a huge secret. Juliet can't help but lean in, too. "I have something to tell you, that might shock you."

"OK?" she says nervously.

"Number one, nothing's going on over _here_. Number two..." Gemma's eyes get huge, and she cups a hand to the side of her mouth before dramatically whispering, "you might not have noticed, but... I'm black."

Juliet's not sure whether she wants to laugh or smack her. "I haven't heard from Jack," she finally admits.

"What? Seriously? Well, they said traffic's kinda bad, depending."

"Everywhere I was this afternoon was pretty empty."

"You call his parents?"

Juliet hesitates. "Well, no, but he would have called me if..."_ If he could?_ How paranoid is she getting here? Because JACK'S OK. HE'S OK. (...Right?)

But, fine. Fine, fine, fine. She dials the Shephards' number. Technically, shouldn't they have called her earlier? She does have their grandchild, after all. But then Margo's hemming and hawing, and she can hear Christian yelling in the background about... hiring a landscaper? What the hell?

Margo heaves a huge sigh. "When we didn't hear from him, at first we didn't think much of it. He's so busy, of course. Then we called you, you weren't there either. We didn't leave a message," she explains hastily. Christian's still ranting in the background. He sounds, well. He sounds kind of drunk.

"To make a very long story short," Margo continues, "I called UCLA, got nowhere. Then I called Ray. Who told me that Jack had been down in the afternoon to help with the yard work. He left around 6, 6:30." She sounds pissy, not scared. There's the sound of breaking glass, and for a second Juliet thinks it's nearby, and then she realizes Christian must have broken something.

And all Juliet can think of are those empty cars on TV, with the open doors. Ray lives in Harbor City. Jack would take 110 there if he's going back to his own apartment afterward; 110 goes right through South Central, and the floor seems to move under her feet like it's a surfboard. She digs her fingers into the wall in front of her.

It's just, it's getting really really really hard to breathe all of a sudden.

She jumps a mile when Gemma takes the phone out of her hands.

"What did you just tell her?" Gemma demands of Margo. "Uh huh... OK... uh huh... OK, thanks. Yeah, we will. He's fine, he's got his little piano. OK. Bye." Gemma hangs up, turns to Juliet. "I told the old bitch I'd let her know if he showed up here. You don't look so good."

"Can you please just turn off the TV?" Juliet gets out. She really, really needs to sit down. Or pass out, either way.

"I take it you don't want any pizza right now."

* * *

Nine o'clock. Ten. They sneak another peek at the TV. The police are overwhelmed, forced to back off in a lot of places. People are outright looting now. Setting fires to cars, to buildings. Huge, fucking massive balls of fire billowing into the night skies. They turn the TV off again. David's asleep on a blanket on the floor. Juliet can't quite bring herself to put him to bed.

Jack's exactly the kind of guy who would try to play a hero, she keeps thinking. Especially in any of a dozen scenarios that are probably playing out multiple times only a few miles from here. But he can't, he CANNOT be doing whatever it is that he's doing, or what if what if what if it's already too late?

David needs him, _she_ needs him_; please, please, I need you to be OK, you heroic idiot,_ she thinks, trying not to cry as she stares at the stupid Scrabble board set up between her and Gemma. And Gemma hates Scrabble, so she obviously knows exactly how worried Juliet is.

_F-U-C-K_, Juliet spells out with tiles. Triple word score. Would be it inappropriate if she broke out the booze?

"That doesn't count," Gemma scoffs.

"It should."

"It's not in the booklet. No way."

"Like you've ever read the Scrabble booklet." No. No no no no, here it comes. She presses a hand to her face; her eyes flood. "I'm sorry," she chokes out. "I can't, I don't..."

"Hey, it's OK." Gemma leans over, hugs her. Juliet just hangs on like she's about to fall off the edge of the planet. One of the very best things about Gemma: She never says things are going to be all right when she has no clue whether they will be or not.

And then the intercom's buzzing, practically buzzing off the wall, and Juliet lurches up, depresses the button. Jack's voice arrives, fills up the room. "It's me." She holds her finger to the button far longer than necessary.

Gemma's gathering her stuff. "All right, keep me updated."

"Please tell me you're not walking home now."

"Two blocks." Gemma rolls her eyes. "They start coming over here, we'll give 'em a run for their money, all right?"

And she's gone. Juliet stands stock still in the middle of her apartment. What now? David's stirring slightly on the blanket, but not even to fully wake up. She wipes at her eyes, smooths her hair, closes the lid to the pizza box. And then he's here, he's at the door, a shiny bruise on his cheekbone, a split lip, but he's here, he's _here_, and she's across the room so fast she's already forgotten the trip. "What happened to - " she begins, and he wraps his arms around her tight, silencing her, stroking his hand over the back of her head, down along her hair.

He's looking at her, then at David on the blanket, then back to her. "He's OK? You're OK?"

"Everyone's OK," she bursts out, even though the world is maybe falling apart all around them, and he just shakes his head with half a grin. He hugs her again, for a perfectly long time, and it's been a _very_ long time leading up to this, after all. And she can feel his heart beating, even, as she just presses tighter and tighter against him like this day hasn't happened.

"Where's Patrick?" He hasn't let go yet.

"We broke up." _Heroic idiot._

"You're really OK?"

"Some kids broke my car window when I was coming back from the bank, but David was at Amy's."

"Thank God," he breathes.

Come to think of it, she hasn't let go yet, either. "Yeah."

"Is it OK if I kiss you now?" he says into her hair.

Her previously forbidden tears are starting to come out again, and the completely inappropriate laughter she'd choked down in Horace's van, and Juliet can't help it, she pulls back to look at him, touches the skin just underneath the cut on his face._ Don't bleed to death,_ she'd told him once upon a time, but now she's laughing and crying all at once. "That would be OK, too."

* * *

**Please leave a review! You don't need to have a FFnet account, I promise.**


	49. Backwards Good Morning

**Yes, I'm still alive, and no, I haven't abandoned this story. I promise! Got busy with life, as it sometimes, sadly, happens. Amazingly, FFnet even managed to change the user interface while I was gone. Progress!  
**

* * *

_"Come here,  
stand in front of the light._  
_Stand still,  
so I can see your silhouette._  
_I hope__  
you have got all night_  
_'cause I'm  
not done looking,_  
_no, I'm  
not done looking yet."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Overlap"

* * *

His mouth closes over hers and he's got his hand on her neck, underneath her hair and she can't remember when he'd ever done that before. Juliet can't stop touching his face, trying to kiss him gently because his lip is still bleeding, and not being nearly gentle enough at all because she can't remember how. He deepens the kiss, pressing up against her, and she moves her hands in his hair, and it's strange how both foreign and familiar his longer hair feels, slipping through her fingers like this.

Eventually they both have to come up for air, breathless, and she pulls back from him slightly, the two of them still hanging onto each other like this is all some kind of dream or mistake. Except it's not.

"Oh," she says softly at the taste of blood in her own mouth, reaching up to stroke his face again. "Come on, Jack, I - " she has to pause to wipe the tears from her own face. "Come on, let me fix you up."

"I'm OK," he insists, shaking his head, swallowing heavily and stepping forward, gathering her up again. She sinks willingly into his arms, pressing the side of her face against his chest. Listening to his heart beating, trying to remind herself this is really, really, really real.

For a long time (or what feels like a long time, anyway), they just stand there in the middle of her living room, Juliet willing that achy feeling in her chest to disperse. Because Jack's here and solid and real and safe, and he's holding her, rubbing her back in wide, slow circles.

Finally Juliet leads him into her tiny bathroom. "Sit down," she orders him, and for a second it looks like he's going to argue with her, but then he closes his mouth and sits on the lid of the closed toilet seat. She turns on the warm water, finds a clean wash cloth and knees down in front of him.

"You don't have to - " he begins.

"I want to," she answers, wiping gently at the blood and dirt on his skin. Juliet twists open the tube of Neosporin, leans in to dab it on his cut lip. She searches his eyes. "What happened?"

"I was listening to the whole thing on the radio, I just never thought..." Jack's jaw is working furiously now as he tries to tamp down some disobedient emotion. "I was on my way back from my grandfather's. Traffic was backed up on the 110. For a long time. When I finally got off, there were these two guys on the corner, yelling at a girl. Sort of circling around her, and I... She couldn't have been more than 13 or 14." He sighs heavily. "This isn't about race. Or, it isn't just about race. People are angry, they're taking it out on_ any_one. The girl, she looked like your sister."

_Rachel?_ she almost asks, before she realizes what he means. Like Tahlia. God, she hasn't even spoken to them since January. Rose had called once, inviting her and David to visit, but she'd been so busy, she'd put it off, and... What's she supposed to do, anyway? Try to establish some kind of relationship with them? They're clearly wonderful people, and Juliet doesn't want to feel like she's conning them for bone marrow.

She tries to focus, and really, it's not that difficult. Why didn't they just convict those cops? Didn't the jurors even _watch_ those tapes? And now the bruise on Jack's face, the cut lip. "What happened?" She's almost cringing now.

"I pulled over, told her to get in the car. Of course that just scared her more, she didn't know what to do. Guys didn't like that. One of them grabbed her, said it was his sister and I should get the fuck out of there. The girl started yelling at him, saying she'd never seen them before, so I got out of the car, told her to get in on the other side. One of them decked me a couple of times." Jack shrugs. "I hit him back, jumped in the car and gave her a ride home."

"That was really great of you," she whispers. _Stupid, but great._ When had Jack ever been that bold before?

Jack leans forward, pressing his forehead up against hers. The gesture isn't unwelcome, but somehow she'd already almost forgotten about the shifting landscape between them, strange and wonderful. She leans in to kiss him again, because she can be bold, too, right? He returns the kiss, the two of them making out in her dingy bathroom with the leaky sink.

"DADA!"

They spring apart like they've been burned, and David is watching them from the threshold of the bathroom, clinging to the doorframe. Jack's face floods with joy as he picks him up, covering his face with kisses. "What'd you just say?"

"DADADADADA!" David is clearly still waking up, but now he's patting Jack's face happily, trilling away. Jack laughs, lifting him up high, blowing raspberries against David's belly.

Juliet feels the smile spread across her face. Fires on TV, gunshots, Jack's messed-up face, her broken car window. But the three of them here, together. "We called you. This morning, I had him leave a message on your machine."

"I haven't been home, I - I'm just so glad you're OK." Jack lowers David again, hugging him. David tries to stick a finger up Jack's nose in reply. "Who am I, David? Can you say it again?

"DADADA!"

Jack is grinning from ear to ear now. He catches David's tiny hand in his, kisses the top of his head. Jack's eyes meet hers. "I can put him to bed."

She nods, her heart jumping into an uncertain little cartwheel.

* * *

David is impossible after all the excitement of realizing he can call his father by name, and as Juliet tidies up the living room, she listens idly to the rhythm of Jack reading a bedtime story to him in a soft voice. Good Night Moon, it sounds like, and then there's a long silence and David wailing. She hears the creak of the glider as Jack undoubtedly eases back down with him, starts another story.

Finally Juliet picks up the phone to call Margo, who answers a little breathlessly. She lies a little, telling her Jack was stuck in traffic but nothing else about it, and Margo sounds mellow or drunk, Juliet's not sure which, and there's not even a hint of Christian in the background this time.

_Let's just pretend everything is fine._

She's hanging up when Jack comes back out of the bedroom. "I called your mother. You hungry?" No need to bring up his father's angry rant earlier, anyway, right?

Even so, Jack looks a little relieved, and she's not sure what about. "Starving."

Juliet reheats the pizza, grateful for something to do. Jack turns on the TV. They watch the fires in silence while he eats, Juliet cross-legged on the couch next to him. "When do you think this is going to stop?"

Jack swallows, wipes his mouth. Drags his eyes from the flickering screen, where the Channel 2 chopper is hovering far enough away from some kind of explosion. "They've got to get tired at some point, right?" He puts down the crust - she's forgotten how neither one of them never eats the crusts of pizza, how juvenile it always seems - and bumps his shoulder against hers.

Back when they were together, whenever her bad shoulder started aching for no good reason, he'd rub it for her.

Back When They Were Together.

What are they now?

Juliet raises her eyes to his, and he seems to read the question in her eyes, the uncertainty. Jack reaches out, slips a piece of her hair between his fingers. "So..." he begins softly.

"So." God, she's scared all of a sudden. People going crazy all over the city, and _this_ is what she's scared of.

He strokes a thumb over the apple of her cheek. "You know, I've spent a lot of time over the past few months going out with a lot of girls."

Somehow she finds her voice, shaky as it sounds. "You're not exactly winning me over, here."

Jack chuckles softly. "What I'm trying to say, is... I didn't meet anyone like you."

"I had more fun watching the ballgame with you the other night than..." Ugh, god, how is she supposed to say this? She really hates getting so emotional, and she's already demonstrated more than her fair share tonight. Except what exactly _is_ so bad about letting Jack see this sort of thing? It's not like she's really going to fall apart, is she? That first night, crying in the booth of the restaurant. No. She's stronger than that, now. She is, she's had to. "Sometimes, sometimes..." This is going to sound so strange. "It's like you remind me of something I didn't know I forgot."

He rotates on the couch, shifting his hips so his knee is touching hers. It's like he has to be touching her for this conversation, she realizes. "No, I know... I know what you're trying to say, and I... I want to be with you. Not for David, not because we're just thrown together, I mean..." (He never looked this nervous about anything three years ago. _Three years, two months and 28 days,_ or no, no, not even three years, they'll have met three years ago _next_ month, really, and - )

Juliet's nodding now, trying to show understanding and agreement mixed in together. "I'm... yeah. Me too."

"Yeah?" Hope and uncertainty on his face.

"Yeah," she whispers, nodding her head probably too many times.

Jack chuckles, more to himself than anything. "I don't think I'm going to get much more from you than that, huh?"

"Just come here."

But somewhere in the middle of a fairly decent makeout session on her scratchy UCLA-issued couch, Jack reaches over to turn off the TV, like things are getting Really, Really Serious Right Now, and Juliet somehow drops from turned on to embarrassed. He hasn't seen the stretchmarks on her stomach yet, and yeah, Patrick had but he couldn't have been all that shocked, he knew she'd had a baby and he'd never seen her any other way, but Jack had and she was so young and perfect and unblemished, and why couldn't she have realized that then, appreciated it, savored it like anything else with a rapidly approaching expiration date, and his hands are under her shirt now and -

"Wait," she blurts.

"What," he pants.

She smooths the hair back away from her face, breathing hard. "I, um, I don't know, I just, I..."

Jack lets out a long breath. Both his hands are on her shoulders and she can't tell if he wants to push her away or pull her closer or keep her from moving. His eyes move over her face and she can feel how wide her own eyes must look right now. "You want to just go to sleep?"

"Um."

"I can sleep out here." He looks confused and hurt, like she'd slammed her fist into his birthday cake. But oh god, his poor face, his split lip looking red and angry from all this kissing.

What is it she wants? "Do you - do you think we could sleep in my room together? Just... just sleep, I mean?"

Jack swallows a breath. "Sure."

* * *

She takes an inordinately long amount of time in the bathroom, brushing her teeth, flossing (when does she ever floss?), inspecting her face close-up in the mirror for what, she doesn't even know.

Jack's tidying up in the living room, straightening her books and papers because he's obviously looking for something, anything to do.

"Bathroom's all yours," she says bravely, like a wedding-night virgin. Ducks into the bedroom and changes into cotton shorts and a tank top before sliding under the covers, watching David breathing in his crib from across the room.

Juliet's already half-asleep when she feels the bed dip, Jack sliding in next to her, keeping his distance. Is she a tease if she moves back, presses against him? She does, though, feeling the rough denim of his jeans against the backs of her legs. "Are you still wearing your jeans?"

"I didn't know if - "

Fully awake again now, Juliet tries not to giggle; it doesn't seem fair. "I'm sorry. It's just, that can't be comfortable to sleep in."

"It was that or, you know. Boxers."

"Afraid I won't be able to handle myself if - " The giggle does escape, and she's not sure if her sudden boldness is fake or real. Lies she tells herself, Vol. 3: It's _just_ the stretchmarks that she's afraid of.

"Good night, Juliet," but there's a laugh in his voice. Jack moves forward against her back, wrapping his arms around her.

"Good night," she answers, not a whisper, but she tucks her chin against her own shoulder.

* * *

The sky in the morning is a filmy yellow haze. She's afraid, almost, to open the window in the bedroom, but she can hear Jack in the front room with David already, so she slides the pane, takes a breath. The air is thick and stagnant, acrid and she slides it closed again, wondering.

In the front room, David's in the high chair, smacking cheerios into a pulverized mess on the surface. Hadn't she had some kind of labor-induced hallucination about him in his high chair with baby food all over him with warm, fresh air breezing through the apartment?

Yeah, well, this is reality.

"A lot of fires." Sure, let's _not_ start with 'good morning' on what might be the first day of Their Actual Life Together Maybe.

Jack nods. "I... things are pretty quiet this morning. Maybe it'll stay calm. I had the TV on for a couple of minutes and they canceled the ball game today. Canceled flights out of LAX."

"My school deposit is due tomorrow." They couldn't turn her down _now_, though, right? The entire _school_ is actually shut down.

"It'll be all right."

Should it still be so strained between them? They're... well, they're sort of together now, right? They slept together. Well, they didn't sleep together. Well, they _slept_. Together. So she steps up to them both, pressing a kiss against David's forehead and then another against Jack's lips. He smiles against her mouth.

* * *

The first day of Their Actual Life Together Maybe is spent sneaking peeks at the TV, finding every possible way to entertain David and fielding phone calls from Margo, Christian, Ray, Dad, Rachel. Christian's working (of course, of course). Matt and Stacy come by for awhile. The last of Gemma's leftover pizza vanishes. From the illuminated square of Juliet's TV, the mayor announces a dusk-to-dawn curfew. Jack hems and haws about going back to his apartment for clothes; Juliet won't let him and Matt brings over extra clothes.

But Jack and and Matt do go to 7-11 for milk, pasta sauce, frozen food. Stacy and Juliet are on edge the entire time. The violence has started up on TV again like it's the rerun of a TV show they saw only yesterday. Bill Cosby comes on and asks people to stay home tonight and watch the last episode of "The Cosby Show."

Juliet looks at the pale sky through the windows and tries to remind herself they're not _actually_ trapped, not technically. David is pulling every pot and pan she owns out of the lower cabinets.

Gemma calls a few minutes after the guys return, reporting slim pickings at the store. "So he's still there?" Gemma prompts.

"Yeah," Juliet answers cagily.

"And?"

Juliet glances over at Jack, unpacking the small supply of groceries. He's so close she could practically touch him. "Later."

"Are we speaking in codes now, Kemosabe?"

"Maybe we are."

Gemma lets out a long, fakely indifferent sigh. "So, are you screwing Jack yet?"

Juliet turns so Jack wouldn't see her face redden. "No. Are you?"

Gemma's still laughing when they hang up.

* * *

They sleep all tangled up together that night, Jack in his jeans again because Matt didn't bring over any pajamas, because why would he think to, and their legs are intertwined, her forehead against his heart beating, the sounds of David's soft slow breaths across the room.

Again the next night, Friday, May 1 and no deposit submitted for medical school, but then, no classes, no university offices open anyway. Jack stirs first, his arm jerking under her head and then there's a crash of glass, then another and another, an angry shout, and they're both sitting up in the milk-blue dark before sunrise. "What was that?" she breathes, sliding out of bed, toward the window.

Jack's further away, but he practically leaps in front of her, grabbing her wrist. "Wait - "

"Jack, I - " Is he trying to protect her? They're on the fourth floor, it's not like -

They get to the window at the same time anyway, Juliet practically having to push herself against Jack so she can get a glimpse. Down on the sidewalk there are two cars with their windows shattered. _Here?_ There's no one else around on the street, dawn glimmering at the edges, but she can see residents of the building across the street looking too.

David moves slightly, whimpering. He's sleeping on his stomach, his rear end raised up in the air, but he wiggles and turns his head to the side, opening his eyes. Juliet takes another glance out the window and moves over to the crib, rubbing his back in small circles. "It's OK, baby. It's OK. Go back to sleep. There you go, shh."

Jack's come up behind her. "Maybe we should leave tomorrow," he says softly.

"And go where?"

"Your sister's?"

"Really?"

"I don't know." It looks like it pains him to say he doesn't know about something. He wraps his arms around her, funny how that's gotten to feel so familiar again in the past couple of days, and the thing is, there isn't any of that desperate clinginess there was in the past. There's a need there, yes, but it's not the kind of need that has either of them scrabbling for dear life, like they're dangling over some sort of abyss unless they're in some Picture-Perfect Clingy Absolutely A+ Relationship(TM).

She's got one hand around Jack and another on the baby's back still.

"This can't go on for that much longer." The National Guard had finally started bringing in troops, but she hasn't even been _outside_ since Wednesday, and really, what does she know except for what the TV is telling them, anyway? Even the L.A. Times building had been damaged. It's total isolation; they might as well be on a deserted island with World Series games being brought in on videotape for all they know.

"If you think so." Jack's face looks so open and honest and trusting, and did she just hear him correctly?

"Jack, I don't know any better than you, I - "

He's shaking his head now. "But I trust your judgment."

She stands there, a little too close maybe, or not close enough, and there's sort of this lump forming in her throat because, because Jack used to just tell her things, tell her how things would be or what she should do or - and now he just believes her, and when did he start? Except she remembers him telling her something like this back when David was first born, too, and - and it's not just the stretchmarks she was scared of, it was all the ways they used to be, except maybe they just won't be that way, or they aren't anymore, and maybe they're trapped in this apartment still, but -

Suddenly she's kissing him now, really kissing him, her hands on both sides of his face, and he's got her, he's got her, he _gets_ her, and his fingers are in his hair, her tongue in his mouth or his in hers or really, it doesn't exactly matter and she kisses him until they're breathless, until they both somehow remember they're still standing next to David's crib.

Juliet speaks first, although it takes her a moment to find her voice. "Maybe we should go in the living room."

This time it's Jack who's nodding way too many times.

"Grab the blankets. I'll get the pillows," she instructs.

They gather up everything like they're preparing for a pornographic picnic. In the front room, he kneels down, spreads the sheets on the floor. She drops the pillows. This all feels... so planned. Embarrassing, suddenly, and it's getting lighter and lighter in this room as dawn approaches. Jack sees her looking at the window. "We're doing this all backwards, huh?."

"Huh?" she echoes._ Brilliant commentary._ Really, C-SPAN will be calling her with a job offer any second now.

He gestures toward the window. "Morning instead of night. Living room instead of bedroom."

Juliet glances over at the pile of toys in the corner. "I think we've been doing this all backwards for awhile now."

A smile splits his face and suddenly he's the Jack she's only known for five minutes, at that desk at the mentor program orientation, back when things (life, anything) could still have gone a thousand million billion directions.

He undresses her slowly, like she's the last gift he's ever going to get in his entire life. Like he needs to take his time, thank the gods, memorize her all over again. He moves his fingers over the silver lines under her navel and she forces herself to meet his eyes. "Sorry," he whispers.

She tilts her head, not understanding.

"I guess I did that, huh?" He looks guilty, but his fingers keep moving over the lines and she's starting to pant softly in spite of herself.

"I think I'm glad you did," Juliet breathes, and yeah, she's marked, Marked with a capital letter, maybe, even, but she wouldn't be herself if she wasn't. He bends to kiss the marks, and her head drops back and he kisses lower and lower... and _lower..._ and she cries out a little, softly (she hopes) but her knees give out against the sheets on the hard parquet floor but god he doesn't stop and together they welcome the new day, and _oh holy mother of GOD, _who cares what's happening in the rest of this awful place right now, this is a _damn_ good day already.


	50. Always Have Work in This Town

**This is sort of a "part one" of a two-part chapter, if that makes any sense. Yes, time gets wonky here.**

* * *

_"In a town that might put a gun to your throat  
or rip the roof right off your place,  
there's a mold crawling up the walls  
and falling asleep in your lungs.  
And you and I both know how to drink some.  
We will always have work in this town.  
Besides the police are stationed at the bridge,  
and they're preventing passage to higher ground."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Red Letter Year"

* * *

**University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Fall 1992**

Videotape. Somewhere in the typical mess of what is shaping up to be her day, she needs to get a blank videotape.

And OK, diapers and milk and a bunch of other stuff, but almost all of that can wait until payday tomorrow, except for that damned tape, and they don't sell diapers at the student union because, well, go figure, so she'll have to head off-campus for those.

Juliet's stealing yet another glance at the clock - it's 10:15; she's got class in 45 minutes - when Dr. DeGroot bursts through the heavy oak door, glasses trapped in the flyaway hair on the top of his head. He drops a new cardboard file box on her desk, the old-fashioned kind from the '70s with a fake, dark-brown wood pattern printed on the lighter cardboard. "Guess what? New project!" He waves his sausage-thick fingers dismissively at the letters she's been typing for the past two hours. "All that can wait."

She has no idea how the man ever gets anything finished, but it's not really her place to ask.

Then again, if she were going to ask_ any_thing, she'd ask how the hell this "work-study fellowship to be determined by the university" fits in at _all_ with a med school scholarship when she's basically a secretary/office slave. She'd sort of assumed she'd be, what, conducting experiments on field mice or something?

Instead Juliet types inquiry letters, alphabetizes file folders, Xeroxes infinitely, waters the orchids along the brown metal windowsill, and... and... well, if there's anything else this job entails, she hasn't discovered it yet, in the two months she's already been here. But only eight hours a week for $5,000 a year? Well, Juliet's always known how to keep her mouth shut. She can keep her mouth shut here, too.

"OK," she responds calmly, trying to sound vaguely cheerful. "I have class in about 45 minutes, though."

DeGroot's in one of his weird moods today, his voice crumpling into that strange inflection he gets sometimes. "You've been here since _8:15_ today, right?" he asks, those thick fingers sorting deftly through the papers in the file box.

Seriously, has she _ever_ not filled in her time card for the university? "That's right," she answers politely.

DeGroot had frozen after his question, his hand still in the box. He's looking, what? Oddly hopeful? For _what_, exactly? After a moment though, he shakes his head rapidly, several times, like he's trying to clear his own mind. "Listen, what do you know about _cars?"_

She feels a little funny now, chilled, maybe. She really can_ not_ come down with something; David's in daycare nowadays and there's always one little kid or another with the sniffles, but she doesn't have time to get sick. No, no, it's just that she's not used to October being so chilly; she's just not used to it and DeGroot must have brought in a draft with him and that's why she's shivering. "Cars?"

"I need to find someone who can rebuild the engine on a_ Volkswagen... _Type..._ Two." _That same weird inflection again. What's with that, anyway?_  
_

And so she stares at him for a second, tilting her head, trying to sort him out, because... because... because... because, why? Because it's freezing cold all of a sudden and he looks way too happy, and seriously,_ how_ is this something the university can pay for them to be spending their time on?

DeGroot is watching her very closely again, which sometimes seems to go hand-in-hand with the weird inflection in his voice.

What is he waiting for her to say? "You just bought it?"

He nods his head, puppy-like, excited and hopeful and obviously ready to be disappointed. "All rusted out on the bottom, needs someone who knows about... about, about welding, and..."

(Juliet constantly wonders if she'll automatically get reassigned next year or if all this weirdness is hers to deal with for the next four years. Come to think of it, Amy Goodspeed's husband had had one of those VW vans too, and he was... he was... well, he was kind of weird too. Just in a different way.)

"I guess... I could look in the phone book for you?" she finally answers, breaking the Spell of Creepiness. "Or maybe there's something in the classifieds? Or I guess I could call a dealership and see if they know of anyone who works with older models?" Were these the kinds of suggestions he wanted? He has about eight million PhDs; shouldn't he just be _telling_ her what to do?

But Degroot seems to wilt a little. "Sounds like a good place to start. Once it's rebuilt I'll have to take you and the rest of the department out for a spin."

Juliet glances outside the weird windows they have here in this office, the panes shaped like hexagons. If he leaves her alone anytime soon, she can at least start before she has to leave for class. "Sounds great."

He hands her another one of those blank expense forms, the kind with 'The LaFleur Project' inscribed on it. "Well, I just hope the damage isn't irreversible. Those things are getting harder and harder to find these days, trust me."

She stares at the paper, the eight-sided insignia. Every time she sees it, she just... No, that's stupid. And DeGroot really must have brought in a terrible gust of cold air, because that chill rolls through her again. Juliet looks up at her boss, fixes her gaze on him, finds her voice. "Nothing is irreversible."

* * *

The rest of her day follows: Cell Biology, then lunch, then study group, then time at the library (most of which, admittedly, is spent napping in a study carrel), then Anatomy in the late afternoon. She remembers at the last second to stop off at the drugstore and buy a videotape before getting David from daycare.

Sometimes it feels like her life is one big record that just keeps spinning and spinning, but then David's head pops up from a cluster of toddlers huddled over a rug that's patterned like a highway. "Mama!" he yells, so much joy in his voice it threatens to overwhelm her, even now, even after all this time, and then he's running toward her still clutching a tiny metal car in his hand.

* * *

Home these days is the entire first floor of a converted three-story house. The shared yard's not fenced in or anything, but as long as she can manage to keep David away from the rusting shed in one corner, they're fine. And the front porch is considered almost all theirs, although their upstairs neighbors of course enter from the front as well.

It was probably a beautiful house 50 or 60 years ago, their door opening onto a series of two large, high-ceilinged rooms, one a living room, the other a combination study/playroom. There's a sunken-in area in the ceiling of that second room, plastered over now, but it's clear this once was a formal dining room with a huge, heavy chandelier.

The kitchen has the same high ceiling, painted-yellow cabinets going all the way up, garnished with black metal pulls. Except for this room and the bathroom, the floors in rest of the apartment are long slabs of dark wood, most of the varnish long since worn away, some gaps between the planks deep enough to worry her, sometimes, that David will catch one of his tiny toes between them if he runs barefoot.

But in the kitchen, where she pulls down one of the two cookbooks she bought at the second-hand bookstore before leaving L.A., the floor is actually new, shiny yellow linoleum, and no, it's not anything fancy, but here she doesn't mind David's toys all over the floor, and none of this feels haunted the way so much of their lives do, sometimes.

She'd started with the cooking when she realized here she was, twenty-two, a _mother_, for god's sakes, and she could barely make anything beyond grilled cheese or spaghetti. Tonight it's baked chicken with artichokes, spinach, mushrooms. While she cooks, David drags his own toy cars, nearly identical to those from daycare, along the linoleum under the small square kitchen table.

When the food's cooking, she brings David back into the living room for a minute - having a bigger place means having to watch him a lot more closely - and rips the cellophane off the videotape as he whines about being removed from his game, but she's not leaving him in there with a hot stove. She lifts him up to the VCR, lets him push in the tape and press the round red button, and he gives her a big smile.

"Pushed da button," he announces.

David is persuaded to eat most of his dinner, although he carefully removes all the mushrooms from his mouth and wipes them on the tray of his high chair. Then he cries because his hands are dirty, and Juliet reaches for the damp washcloth she keeps nearby for situations like this. Cry, wash, repeat, and then when they're done he beams at her like none of this was remotely a problem.

She sings to him while he splashes in the bath, Iggy Pop and Nirvana and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and he trills back, adding in extra syllables and notes wherever he sees fit.

The long, narrow bathroom, tiled in the black-and-white checkerboard of post-World War II bathrooms everywhere in America, runs between the two smallish bedrooms. David's is closer to the front of the house, his curtains printed with seahorses, the same mobile Jack had bought while she was in the hospital, still dangling over the crib. She reads to David in the glider until his eyelids droop.

Clean the kitchen. Put away leftovers. Yawn, yawn, yawn.

Back out in the office/playroom, she nudges toys out of the way with her right foot, hunkers down in front of the wheezing computer to type up her lab report, her notes from today's classes. For her assigned reading, she's tempted to move onto the couch, but she feels the heavy pull of her own eyelids.

Down the street a neighbor's dog barks, two syllables, harsh. It's so dark this time of year. Abruptly she stands, stretches her legs, her arms. Her bad shoulder pops. She drags the curtains closed, brings her highlighters and her textbook to the couch in the front room. _Why not?_

The quiet fills up her ears.

* * *

**UCLA, May 1992**

The National Guard fills up the streets (and the TV channels) with squawking feedback: megaphones and sirens and orders. Car fires fill up the neighborhood with smoke and small, grumbling explosions. The governor smiles grimly in televised press conferences; Governor Clinton from Arkansas gets on TV to talk about systemic poverty.

Juliet's deposit slip continues to sit on her desk. She gamely ignores it while she watches TV, plays with David, makes love with Jack in the living room while the baby sleeps in the bedroom. It's like two worlds or fifteen or all just the same one, really, and she hasn't exactly decided which.

Classes resume on Tuesday. The air outside doesn't feel as thick as it had through the window screens those first couple of mornings. Juliet feels like she just broke out of jail. The trees seem to glitter with freedom.

Juliet's first two professors of the day are split, one promising an easier final due to the missed class time, the other desperate to catch everyone up, uncompromising despite the rising groan throughout the room. On what normally would be her lunch break, she calls Jack (at her own apartment) from a payphone - he'd said he'd ride downtown to the bank with her so she can finally get her cashier's check for UCLA Med. Safety in numbers, her burly protector and so forth.

He answers a little breathlessly. "You're not going to _believe_ this."

"What?"

"Come here and pick me up, OK? Stacy said can watch David for an hour."

Jack looks strange, a little wild when she pulls up. Wild like she's maybe not used to seeing anymore. Anyway, he tells her while they drive, no more secrets anymore - and, OK, this isn't exactly the kind of thing to keep secrets about: This morning he'd left David with Stacy, and had finally walked the two blocks to where he'd parked his car the night this all began. Only his car (or what once _was_ his car) is now one of a row of burned-out hulls.

Instinctively she wants to brake her own car, her heart slamming in her chest. "Your - they - ?"

Jack presses his fingertips to his temple. "At least I was insured." He looks like he's desperately trying not to get angry.

But they've arrived. The bank rises up before them, a great white shark lodged in concrete. Perfect, whole, untouched... but still padlocked. So much for that.


	51. LaFleur

**This one goes out to Tahti for leaving review #500!**

* * *

_"Skeletons are fine. Your closet, or mine?"_

- Ani DiFranco, "Small World"

* * *

**Los Angeles****, May & June 1992**

They might as well be living inside an electric fence right now.

It's not so dangerous anymore that she or Jack won't go outside (burned-out hulls of charcoal-black cars notwithstanding), but neither of them is all that comfortable with bringing the baby out yet. The National Guard is still patrolling the streets, and they did just shoot someone this morning.

For god's sake, she never thought she'd live somewhere people could just randomly get shot on any given day.

Over the phone, the UCLA Admissions Office tells her they're willing to wait for her med school deposit, considering the extenuating circumstances. Her calls to the bank on Tuesday and Wednesday go unanswered. She tries the two other branches listed in the phone book; nothing.

Rachel calls on Wednesday to make plans to visit for graduation. _Graduation? That's still happening?_

"Well, we thought we'd come up that Thursday and stay 'til - "

"We?" Juliet can't help herself. It's been months now since she'd walked in on Rachel and Niall sleeping together twined up on the couch, and assuming they're still together, Rachel still hasn't given her the tiniest hint.

"Well, yeah, I mean, you know... Niall wants to see you walk across that stage, too."

"Mm-hm." She can't keep the skepticism out of her voice, even though Rachel's statement probably is true enough. But Juliet doesn't say anything else, waiting. This has gone on for long enough, whatever it is. Seconds tick by.

Rachel can't handle silence as well as Juliet, though, and eventually she heaves a gigantic sigh. "I guess... uh... I should probably tell you that we're living together."

_Nice try._ Juliet keeps her voice as light and over-the-top innocent as possible. "Well, yeah. You two have been roommates for, what? Three years?"

"Like... not as roommates."

Juliet hides her sudden, unbidden smile against her hand even though it's not like Rachel can see her. "Was it really that hard to tell me?"

"Sort of?"

She looks over at David, pulling dirty clothes out of the laundry basket waiting near the front door. Hauling the dirty clothes down the hall while corralling him isn't so easy these days now that he's getting faster on his feet. "I'm happy for you, you know."

"It's not... weird?"

_Why would it be weird,_ she doesn't ask. She knows what Rachel means. Should she tell her sister about Jack? In what way can Juliet _not_ come out looking immature? _It's OK now that I have someone too?_ Ugh.

"I'm really, really happy for you," and she means it, this time, finally.

* * *

_May 5, 1992 _

_Dear Ms. Carlson, _

_Greetings from the University of Michigan Medical School! We have not yet received your acceptance or regrets regarding our offer of admission. As noted previously, your response was requested no later than April 30, 1992. _

_If our correspondence has crossed in the mail, please excuse this letter. _

_We would like to take this opportunity to remind you about our offer of a full merit scholarship in honor of your outstanding academic achievement. This scholarship offer includes four years of tuition, laboratory and administrative fees, and an annual allowance for textbooks. We are also delighted to offer you a stipend of five thousand dollars ($5,000.00) per annum for living expenses, in exchange for a work-study fellowship to be determined by the university. _

_We hope this offer will convince you to join us this fall semester as a member of the Class of 1996. _

_At the University of Michigan Medical School we educate individuals to provide exemplary patient care and graduate physicians who assume leadership roles in the areas of medical practice, research and teaching, blah blah blah blah... _

* * *

Juliet locates the letter that she was _supposed_ to send to Michigan underneath her stack of last semester's text books. Thanking them, turning them down.

The envelope looks a little yellowed, even, or maybe that's just the light this time of day. David's tugging at her jeans, saying something that sounds like "boggy" over and over, and she has no clue what the hell he wants, and in the old days, before David, there's no way in hell she would have neglected to mail something like this.

But his tiny face crumples up more the longer he repeats himself, until, near tears now, he stomps over to her stereo and starts smacking his hand against it, squawking and whining, and she finally figures it out.

"You want the doggy song?"

"Boggeeee!" He's half-bouncing now, still smacking on the side of the stereo and pretty much ignoring her requests to, well, not hit the stereo while she abandons her correspondence on the table and goes digging through her cassettes for Jane's Addiction. He squirms against her leg, whining, his little hands hot against her skin.

The tape takes forever to fast-forward to the right part, but David brightens up once the dogs start barking on the tape.

_It's just as simple as that.  
Well, it's just a simple fact.  
When I want something,  
I don't wanna pay for it._

She's dancing with him up in the air, blowing raspberries on his belly - David giggling so hard he can barely breathe - when Jack lets himself in with the key she finally returned to him the other day. At first she's embarrassed, wanting almost to hide and slowing for a few of beats, but David yelps in protest, grabbing a handful of her hair.

Jack just grins, folding his arms and leaning against the door. _Go on, h_e seems to imply.

_Jerk,_ she thinks, but she does.

_And she did it - just like that!_  
_When she wants something, _  
_She don't wanna pay for it! _

David claps and claps.

When the song's over, she puts him down and he goes running over to Jack, but Jack's looking at her strangely right now. What, was her babydancing just too ridiculous to comprehend? "Are you hungry?" he finally asks, and she's not, but she nods anyway.

They make dinner, David grabbing at their legs the entire time, but all through dinner, when David's distracted enough with the Mashing of Pasta Against Defenseless Highchair Tray, something is weird. Off, or... Jack's just _quiet_. And somewhere inside Juliet, a strange fear is starting to build, that Jack's changed his mind about all of this.

She hadn't thought she was this insecure anymore, but... why should he want to be here in this chaos? He obviously loves David, but this life of nonstop domesticity while racing the clock against finals and what'll obviously be a crippling work schedule one day, and - it's just going to be all too much, isn't it?

Later, while listening to Jack bathing David, reading to him, soothing him, Juliet only manages to half-concentrate on her text book. _No. No, no, no, everything is fine,_ she tells herself uneasily.

Finally he comes out of the bedroom, settles on the couch next to her, clears his throat like he's ready to make a speech. Her heart flips over like a sputtering goldfish.

"I got a phone call today," he begins.

She tilts her head silently, waiting for him to continue. Her hands go clammy.

Jack takes a breath, then seemingly switches tactics. "That - that song you we dancing to, with David? The Jane's Addiction one?"

"What about it?

"Just..." He shakes his head a couple of times. "I got a call from an adviser at the U-M Health System. In Ann Arbor. About - about their residency program."

Well, that wasn't at _all_ where he thought he was going. "Huh?" she manages intelligently.

He gives her a crazy look now. "Apparently I was referred to them because they had a few people drop out of the new intern cohort that's starting up, and the medical school had all this information on me, and... I thought you told them you weren't going? What did you _tell_ them, anyway? They seemed to know all about us."

Ann Arbor should change its motto to something about stalking. _Stalkus Est Lux Lucis._ Juliet explains everything: about realizing recently she'd never given them an answer either way. About the reminder the school had sent her the other day. About the weirdly invasive second phone interview. "He asked me all _about_ you. It was an interview, Jack. I couldn't exactly decline to answer his questions."

"Well, they said if you ended up going to med school there, and I wanted to consider an internship with them... all I had to do was fax them my transcripts and have my adviser call them." His face is twisted; there's a struggle, she can see it. "The salary - it's not as good as St. Sebastian's, but it blows UCLA out of the water."

"And you wouldn't be working with your father."

Jack exhales heavily, slowly. "And I wouldn't be working with my father."

They sit in silence for a minute, Juliet pulling on the edges of her sleeves. She's wonders how furious Christian would be. She wonders if Jack thinks she put the school up to this somehow, asked them a favor when, in reality, she could possibly have any pull over there. That scholarship offer. Jesus. _She don't wanna pay for it,_ the song goes.

Jack finally inhales to speak again; she can see the wheels turning now. "I don't have to get another car. Not in Ann Arbor. It's walkable, not like here. The insurance company's giving me somewhere between three and four thousand dollars. That would be enough for a down payment and first month's rent. It would cover gas, tolls, motels to get there. Think your car could handle one of those little Uhaul trailers on the back? Or I could rent a bigger one and we could drive separately. Then I'll start getting a paycheck and you'll get your grant money. We wouldn't have to ask my parents for a thing, not ever again. We could find a two-bedroom. David could have his own room. Maybe the landlord would just us paint stars on the ceiling for him like you wanted."

Her head is spinning; none of this seems real, and he's talking about painting stars on the ceiling of an apartment two thousand miles away that they don't have yet. And they would live together? Like a family? _Like not as roommates?_ "Seriously?" she finally asks, instantly feeling embarrassed by how skeptical she sounds.

But there's a feeling growing inside her, a thin wisp of hope, a tiny flicker of amazement that he really does want this, wants _them_, wants her to get her scholarship, not end up suffocated by student loans and they would be together, a family, every day...?

He looks at her incredulously. "You think it's a bad idea?"

It's impossible to hide her spreading smile. "I love that idea."

* * *

On the second Saturday in May, she stands in her long black graduation gown in her living room while Rachel bobby-pins the mortarboard to her head. David is standing on the couch, clinging to the back of it with one hand, and with the other he points at her, giggling.

"Even a baby thinks this looks silly."

"Just shut up," Rachel admonishes, getting the last pin in place. "There, you think that will hold?"

"It's pulling a little." Juliet reaches up anxiously, adjusting it slightly. Rachel is taking David to the ceremony with Dad and Stephanie, who are in their hotel right now. Last night they'd all gone out to dinner with Jack, and Dad had actually raised a toast and gotten all wistful about how he didn't think Juliet would make it, at least not in only four years, but she _had_ and he was so _proud_ and so forth. Juliet wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed or angry or proud, but Rachel had pointed out on the way back to Juliet's apartment that hell, Rachel _still_ hadn't finished school and Juliet should be fucking proud.

(Looking at herself in the mirror now though, Juliet casts a glance back toward her sister, toward David. She _is_ fucking proud, she decides.)

"What time are you supposed to be there?" Rachel asks, reaching down to the coffee table for her camera and snapping a picture of Juliet at the mirror.

"Ten," she answers, rolling her eyes at her sister's need to document everything. Then again, it's probably a good idea. Something to show David someday. And Jack can't watch her walk across the stage, or vice versa; the undergrad and med school ceremonies are being held concurrently at different venues. They're all supposed to meet up at 12:30, after it's all over, for a lunch with everyone's parents.

They still haven't said a word about being together. About Michigan.

Then again, she hadn't even her father she was pregnant. Rachel did it for her, five months on.

Juliet's always tried to wait until the last possible second to drop a bomb.

* * *

In mid-June, Juliet comes home from her summer grocery store job (they don't care how educated - or not - you are over there; what's important is that you know to put the croissants on top) to an answering machine message from Ann Arbor.

More specifically, from Gerald DeGroot.

Heart pounding, she dials the number he'd left, even though it's after five, Eastern time, and...

"This is DeGroot."

"This is - this is - " She swallows. "This is Juliet Carlson, you left me a - "

"Juliet," he booms. "Thank you for calling me back so quickly."

"Sure? I mean, of course."

"I wanted to speak to you about your work-study program. The university has, ah, determined that you'll be joining me in the physics department."

"The...?" What? Shouldn't she be disposing of medical waste or counting test tubes or draining corpses?

"Mostly light clerical work," he says like he's reading her mind (he can't, though, right?). "Assorted errands. We'll see what comes up. You'll be contributing to a very important project, though." DeGroot clears his throat, emphasizing True Importance. "The... _LaFleur_ project," he says grandly, and it's true, her surroundings almost do seem to blur and shimmer a little just then.

Actually, maybe more than a little. Juliet grips the desk. It's really hot out today, and she must not have drunk enough water, and she's... dizzy. Really dizzy. The floor seems to roll under her feet. She squeezes her eyes shut.

"Are you still there?" DeGroot asks now, almost anxiously. Eagerly.

She opens her eyes. Her vision is still black at the edges. "I - yes, I - what's the... the La...?" Her heart is pounding.

"The LaFleur Project? Well, it's mostly top secret, I'm sure you understand, but we're doing some testing on the effects of electromagnetism, especially as it relates to repressed memories."

"And - and you think I - " Juliet trails off, sits down on the floor next to her desk._ Get it together. You're not a mess anymore_ "If you don't mind, Dr. DeGroot, I'm just... wondering... why the... university chose me for the job?" For some reason she swipes at the skin under her nose.

DeGroot starts blabbering on about how she's a well-rounded student, with all that background work in physics, and the medical school agreed to loan her out, so to speak, because even though it'll be mostly clerical work, he's sure she could be an asset to their group and the schedule is flexible so she would still have plenty of time for her son. "You have a gift, Juliet," he tells her. "And no, it's not going to be typing or filing, but... don't you feel you're meant to do something significant with your life? I think if you work in this program, you can do just that."

_Fine, let's just take a trip to Crazytown, population: two._ "What exactly is this program?" she asks again.

DeGroot sighs, but patiently. Reluctantly. "I can't tell you that. What I can tell you is that, if this goes well, you'll see things there that you've never imagined. Now, no one's forcing you to do anything. So if you change your mind about the grant, I'm very happy to tell the university - "

The words fly out of her mouth like she's possessed by someone who knows exactly what she's doing. "No. No, I'll take it."

* * *

Other World Books is a narrow storefront of a used bookstore, dark and clammy, floors covered throughout with old, '70s-style yellow wall-to-wall carpeting curling and rippling with age and heat. Juliet hefts her first box of books out of the truck of her Volvo, shoulders her way through the tinted door dotted with stickers in various stages of fading from the sun.

The girl at the counter pushes back a lock of dyed-black hair. "Selling, you can go straight back."

"I've got another box still."

The girl shrugs. "It's OK, you can leave your first one here. I gotta track down the manager still. He does all the buybacks, I'm just counter."

Juliet goes back out to her car, blinking in the bright sunlight, the bleached freeway on the other side of the narrow strip of grass and palm trees. She's been packing up for Michigan lately, has plenty of books she can sell for a little extra cash considering she can't bring everything, but - something in her chest tightens all of a sudden, like she's leaving something behind and she's not sure what.

No, no, it's all going to be OK.

Back inside it takes a few seconds for her eyes to adjust. Her first box is missing from the front, but she lugs the second one to the back like the employee had told her to. Sure enough, in the back of the store, Juliet spots the black-haired girl dumping the first box onto the floor.

"He should be up in just a sec, he's down in the stock room. You can just..." The girl gestures toward a seafoam-green plastic chair next to the long, dark wood-laminate table bowed in the middle, before heading back to the front.

Juliet ends up rereading one of her old paperbacks in the Chair of Dubious Comfort for a good fifteen minutes when she hears clomping bootsteps behind her. God, finally. It's not like she has all day to -

"All right, blondie, let's see what ya got."

And then her chest tightens again and she almost can't breathe, like it was on the phone with DeGroot, her vision darkening at the edges, and she practically leaps off the chair, spinning around. The manager is standing there, shaggy dark blond hair almost to his chin, and when their eyes meet, he looks... dumbfounded, almost, his jaw dropping a little, his brow creasing. There's a still-healing scar on his lip, red and vertical, and he blinks his green eyes once, twice, slowly.

She grabs onto the back of the chair like they're having an earthquake. He's still staring at her and it's just - have they met before? Did they know each other, did they somehow - ? No, _no_, she's never seen him before, she's sure of it, but maybe they could get coffee sometime or, no, no, she's with _Jack_, they have a _child_ together, and what is she even _doing_, she's seen good-looking guys before, that doesn't mean she needs to practically pass out in front of them.

"I, uh, you just, this is your stuff here?" he sort of stammers, and he nods.

"I, I, I, can you just, um, I have to go do something, do you mind if I come back?" she chokes out.

His jaw is still hanging down a little. He blinks harder. "Yeah," he finally says, and his voice seems slower and thicker than it had a second ago. "Fif- uh, fifteen minutes should do it."

Juliet goes out to her car and cries until her ribs ache, and she doesn't even know why. The kind of scary, angry barking sobs that fill up the car and hurt her eyes. Sounds that terrify her, because suddenly she is so, so afraid of the rest of her life and why, _why_, what happened, this morning everything was fine and now she feels like she's plunged into darkness, a long fall into something she can't define.

* * *

She's afraid to see that manager again, considering the way she'd run out earlier. Considering her red, puffy face.

He barely seems to notice though, hardly looking up at her when she returns. He gestures, instead, to the boxes at their feet. "OK, uh, that... that one's got the ones we're gonna take. One on the right, you can take back with ya." He holds up a buyback form in his left hand. "Sign this and then ya can give this to the girl up at the register an' she'll give ya your money." He squeezes his eyes closed for a second and takes a ragged breath. Why won't he look at her?

"Are you OK?" Juliet asks in spite of herself, and she almost wants to lay a hand on his arm, except that would be too forward.

"Yeah, just, uh..." His jaw is clenched, working furiously. "Dunno." Keeping his gaze down, he nudges the box of her rejected books with his foot. "You didn't like Carrie?"

"Just couldn't get into it," she manages, staring at the almost-new cover. She'd meant to leave it in the laundry room for someone to take, and then she'd kept forgetting.

"Yeah, why not?"

"It was just... unrealistic."

He barks a laugh at that. "Sci-fi horror, whaddya expect?"

She can't help but roll her eyes at that. She's feeling less dizzy now, and that helps. "Not that. I just meant - this girl, she was ostracized by everyone she knew. No one was ever there for her, not once. It just... didn't seem realistic."

Something flickers in his eyes then. "Well, then I guess ya couldn't relate," he says sharply.

"I guess not." She's uncomfortable now. Is he judging her for something? She digs her sandals into the carpet. She should leave, but for some reason she's rooted where she stands.

He hesitates, then indicates a pen on the table. "Can you just - "

Sign. Right. This is weird. It feels like his eyes are boring into the back of her neck now as she bends down, and impulse takes over. It's not like they need to see ID. _Juliet LaFleur,_ she signs, and straightens up, leaving the pen on the table.

"You know, if... I'm moving soon, and I can't take these with me. If you just want them for yourself, or anything."

He smiles a little then, looking up at her sadly, raising both his hands in an almost theatrical gesture at their surroundings. "Got all the books I could ever hope for, right here."

Right. Of course he does. "You don't... you don't wear glasses to read, do you?"

His face furrows up again. He looks so... _familiar_ when he does that. Her knees tense like she's about to walk away, even though she isn't. Not yet. "What - how - did we... Did we ever meet, or anythin'?"

"No, I... I don't - stupid joke, just - that Twilight Zone episode, where he breaks his glasses, I - "

Neither one of them can speak full sentences for a few sentences. "I should probably - "

"Yeah," he says.

"OK, then." She doesn't move, still.

"Yeah. OK."

Up at the front, she collects her money and pauses to buy a couple of cookbooks in an impetuous attempt to become a better grownup. He - Juliet realizes she doesn't even know his name - carries the remaining box to her car for her.

(She's almost stopped crying by the time she gets home.)

(That was weird.)

* * *

**University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Fall 1992**

Someone is sliding a textbook off of her chest. That part she's sure of. Other than that, she's not sure of anything except that she's wearing very warm socks, which means -

She opens her eyes. She's in Michigan. The living room is half-dark, and Jack is kneeling in front of her. "Sorry if I scared you," he whispers.

"You didn't. I was just confused."

He presses a kiss to her forehead. "You always fall asleep when you study on the couch."

"I know. I need to stop," she murmurs.

"I think it's cute." He leans forward, scoops her up off the couch. "Time for bed."

"How was work?" she mumbles into his neck as Jack carries her down the hall, pausing at David's door to listen to him breathe for a few seconds. She hates when he works these 18-hour shifts.

Jack nudges their bedroom door open with his foot. "Long. But good." He deposits her on the bed, undresses her, finds her T-shirt and pajama pants from their stack of clean laundry on the dresser. "I stink. I need to take a shower."

"There are leftovers in the fridge," she mumbles into her pillow. "And I taped the Red Sox game."

"You did?" He sounds thrilled. "We didn't have a tape."

"I got one."

He leans back down to her, kisses her lips this time, his hand on her neck, underneath her hair. "I love you."

"I love you too," she answers, and drifts back to sleep.

* * *

**Can you believe that this story turned one year old in my absence? I'm hoping that I'll be able to update more frequently from here on out. If you're still enjoying this story, please let me know! It would make me really, really, really happy! Times have been very up-and-down for me lately, and reviews would totally cheer me up. **


	52. Qualify

_ "There are some things that you can't know_  
_ unless you've been there,_  
_ but oh how far we could go_  
_ if we started to share."_

- Ani DiFranco, "Work Your Way Out"

* * *

Jack must be starving by now, she thinks, steadying the plate in one hand as she unlocks the door, pushes it open.

Except he's right on the other side of it, grabbing at her arms, pushing himself against her, and the heavy white plate goes flying, shattering against the metal floor. Juliet is bent over the table, her arms behind her back, and she's scrabbling for the taser in the back waistband of her khakis, it's _right there_, but she feels his hand against hers and he yanks the taser out of grasp, sending it skittering across the floor.

They're silent except for heavy breathing, the small pathetic noises she makes as she tries to fight against him, it's not like she doesn't know how to fight (being beaten up for _weeks_, bruises on her face, swollen lips, black eyes, dislocated shoulder, until she started swinging back hard enough and fast enough), but he's bigger and stronger and he had the element of surprise - she was _stupid_ to trust him like that, and where _is_ everyone, _any_one, shouldn't they be watching this on the security cameras, where _are_ they, were they _expecting_ this, are they just letting her be overpowered? _Why?_ And oh god, where is David; is he sleeping through this somewhere, is he OK?

Jack bends down with her to the floor, just for an instant, and she doesn't know why, but when he raises them up again, standing straight this time, he's got a jagged edge of the plate against her jugular vein. He's a doctor too, he knows just where to cut. His right forearm is sideways across her breast and she knows he must be able to feel her heart pounding.

"Which way out?" he almost purrs, his breath hot against her ear.

"Don't do this, Jack," she gasps. "Don't - don't - " Maybe David is hiding under a bed somewhere._ Please, please._

Jack drags her down the hall. The buttons from her shirt must have been ripped off, the shirt itself down almost to her elbows, and she can feel the heat from his body through her thin tank top. The shard of china is digging into the skin on her neck. He drags her to the door, kicks at it but it doesn't budge. Drags her to the other end of the hall - _no, no._ (Isn't someone supposed to come save her?)

They're in front of the metal wheel. He loosens his grasp on her, only to thrust her forward. She can feel his anger simmering like heat rising from an engine block. Her hands are free, sort of. But he's got a weapon, no matter how primitive. "Open it," he commands.

"I can't," she pleads, even he he starts shaking his head in angry disbelief. "I_ can't, J_ack, I do that, we die."

"You're lying," he mutters, disgusted. The dark circles under his eyes stand out in this green light, his face red.

"I'm not, I'm not," she insists, almost crying now. All semblance of control is long since gone and _WHERE IS DAVID SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHERE HE IS._

_"OPEN THE DOOR!"_ he screams at her, the fury exploding in his voice, his face contorting with rage, and that's when she jerks awake in a dark room, pushing up off the sheets on her wrists, her heels digging into the mattress.

"Oh - " She's clawing at her pillow, swatting Jack's arms away from her, gasping, sitting up, twisted in the sheets.

"Juliet - " Jack's awake now too, also sitting up, reaching for her. She stiffens, she has to let him touch her, it was just a dream, and - "Juliet, are you OK?"

She's panting hard, still, gasping for air, and what _happened_, he wanted to open the door and the ocean would flood in, except _what_ ocean? They're landlocked, they're in Michigan, even Lake Erie is fifty miles away, and they're not underground, they're in their _apartment_, and he's not trying to hurt her, he's trying to _comfort_ her and... "I had a bad dream," she finally gets out.

"Close your eyes," his voice comes gently.

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Without hesitating Juliet does as instructed, trying and trying to forget, hearing rustling, and then the insides of her eyelids turn red because Jack's turned on his bedside light. She cracks her eyes open slowly, watching him. He looks worried. He needs to shave. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Can you check on David?" she whispers.

He frowns. "Yeah. Yeah, of course. You want me to put on water for tea or something?"

She shakes her head. She still hates tea.

While Jack creaks down the hall, she curls up, facing the door so she can see him come back in. Most of the details of her dream are fading now. He'd wanted her to open a door, desperately. What was he so desperate about? So angry? She'd wanted to fight him. In the dream, she'd known she _could_, even. The adrenaline is still pumping; she sneaks a peek at the digital clock on her end table. 4:15. It's so quiet here, on the first floor of this big house on the south end of campus. Some evenings, their upstairs neighbors, Jason and Felix, stamp in frustration when one of them loses a level in Super Nintendo, but it's the middle of the night now, nothing but all these old swishing trees around to make noise.

Jack's in the doorway, tall and dark and difficult to see until he emerges from the blackened hallway, stepping back into their bedroom with a glass of water. He sits down on her side of the bed, handing her the glass. "He's fine. Asleep with his dolphin."

She takes a long sip of water; her throat is dry from this artificial radiator heat she's not used to, and anyway, it prevents her from having to say anything. Jack tries to run his fingers through the hair at the back of her head, but it's tangled and he promptly gives up. Instead, she lays back down on her side, curling around him, and he twists near her, rubbing her left hip through her white sweatpants. His hand is big and warm, and technically what he's doing to her feels good, but she remembers her dream vividly again for just a split-second and can't keep the grimace from her face.

"You're sure you don't want to talk about it?"

"I'm not sure I really remember it." Had _she_ been keeping _him_ prisoner in the beginning? Why would she do that?

He leans over sideways, kissing her shoulder. "Think you can get some sleep? Long day tomorrow."

"Jack, every day is a long day when you're us."

He grins then, a little silly. She smiles back. Their bed (Jack's bed, from his old studio apartment) is comfortable, maybe slightly too squishy, but it's warm and soft, and he crosses to his own side, lying down and wrapping his arms around her. She shoves down the swell of anxiety at the sensation, until their breathing evens out together and he's just Jack again, the only Jack she's ever known.

* * *

Jack tells his parents that there won't be any traveling for Thanksgiving or Christmas or David's birthday, that he and Juliet need time to formulate their own little family structure in Ann Arbor and next year is always a possibility, blah blah blah. Juliet sits at the desk in their playroom/office/fake dining room as she listens to him getting more and more agitated on the phone.

"But what _you're_ not understanding is - " he's trying again.

She somehow can't even believe his parents are still doing this. That graduation lunch was something of a horror show. The initial awkwardness was expected on all fronts; they'd called off Margo's babysitting of David the last couple weeks of that final semester and during the few weeks of summer before they'd moved - which had led to Christian basically cutting off loans to Jack at the worst possible time. They'd barely scraped by taking care of David, mostly because Juliet had finally asked her dad for more money, which had made him dislike Jack (from afar, even more).

And graduation marked the first time the two sets of "parents" (Juliet still had felt weird about thinking of Stephanie as her stepmother, and should she have invited Rose and Tahlia and Bernard?) met each other. They'd had lunch at a nice place downtown, still all dressed up, with Juliet's and Jack's graduation gowns draped over their chair backs and David refusing to stay in his high chair, instead being passed from one lap to the next.

Niall and Rachel looked like they were ready to bolt pretty much from the time they'd sat down. Then the waiter came for the first set of drink orders, and Dad and Stephanie ordered wine, and Juliet felt Jack freeze next to her. _Oh. Oh._ She should have warned them.

"Just a sparkling water for me," Christian told the waiter stiffly, and Juliet slipped her hand under the table, squeezing Jack's knee. He shot her an uncertain look. _Are we still telling them?_ she wished she could ask him.

Conservation moved politely enough for most of the lunch. Weather, particularly the comparison between Key West and Los Angeles, was a seemingly _fascinating_ topic of conservation. Dad asked Christian about treating people at the hospital during the riots - OK, not exactly an uplifting topic, but certainly timely. Margo was interested in Niall's classes - turned out she'd majored in English once upon a time. Juliet couldn't remember if she'd known that before.

David got antsy around the time they finished their entrees, and Rachel offered to talk him for a walk outside. As she lifted him from Juliet, though, Rachel flashed her a warning look. "Just do it already," she muttered, because of _course_ Rachel was the expert in all of this, having only learned the news about two hours earlier herself.

Juliet could tell Jack heard Rachel, and at the next lull in conservation, Jack cleared his throat. For two weeks now, Juliet had imagined he would be the one to start, but when he finally did, she realized exactly how relieved she really was. "Juliet and I have an announcement."

Juliet's father frowned. "Shouldn't we wait for...?" He twisted around, looking off in the direction Rachel and David had gone.

"We'll get her up to speed," Juliet promised softly.

"What, um, kind of announcement?" Stephanie asked then, starting to smile, trying to hide it.

Christian squinted in suspicion; Margo pressed a hand to her mouth. Grandpa Ray? Sort of smiled.

_Oh God. Oh god oh god, Jack, please keep going before this gets much more embarrassing. We are not getting married. I am not pregnant. Please, please KEEP IT MOVING.  
_

"A couple months back, Juliet received a wonderful honor." _OK, OK, so you're starting this like a speech. You know what? Fine. Do what you need to do, Jack._ "A full scholarship at the University of Michigan, with a work-study grant. And they've also reached out to me and offered me a position in their residency program. We've decided that..." Everyone was gaping, and there Jack hesitated.

"That it makes the most financial sense for us to move. To Ann Arbor," Juliet finished.

Her father's face split into a grin. "Well... that's wonderful! No student loans? Congratulations!"

Juliet nodded her head in agreement, trying not to smile too hard. Jesus, what were they thinking? They should have told their parents separately. For once her dad was genuinely proud of her.

Christian was silent, too silent. Margo looked horrified. "That's it? You're taking David away from us?"

"We're not taking David away, Mom, this is just a great opp-" Jack began.

"And you just _happened_ to get this offer." Christian, finally.

Jack's hands were pressed flat against the tabletop. "Actually, yes. They're crazy about Juliet, and - "

"And have you thought about how this will make you _and_ I look to the staff at St. Sebastian's? You already accepted a - "

"I called them and rescinded on Monday. I asked them not to say anything to you until now."

"And when you come crawling back to L.A., you honestly think that they'll just have a job waiting for you?"

_(Are_ they ever coming back to L.A.? Juliet couldn't imagine much beyond the next four years. Or, more honestly, the next few months.)

"Now, son," Ray began. "Today is a celebration."

"I agree with Ray," Stephanie announced, then paused. "...It's Ray, right? This is a _good_ thing for these kids. Let's not crap all over it."

_Thank you. Thank you, thank you, awkward stepmother I used to dislike for no particular reason except you always tried to help too much._

"Oh, please, you're not even her mother," Margo interjected, rolling her eyes. "And _they're_ not even - " She suddenly cast a confused look over to Juliet and Jack. "Wait. Wait a minute. Are you... together?"

"Yes." Jack's voice was firm. His hand slid over and found Juliet's. Across the table, Niall (poor, poor, stranded Niall) beamed at her.

"Well, thank goodness for that," Margo sighed, then cast her eyes toward Juliet's father. "She's a very lovely girl, and we like her very much. We just wish they were not doing this to us."

"We're not doing anything to you," Jack muttered.

"We'll talk about this later," Christian said.

Jack squared his shoulders. "No. No, we won't."

(No one ordered dessert.)

Her father patted her sympathetically on the shoulder on the way out. "I will never do anything like that to you ever again," he whispered.

"I know," she whispered back.

* * *

**Winter 1992-93**

The truth about the holidays? They're not going to be alone, not for Christmas. Rachel and Niall are driving up. There's a Nirvana show in Detroit on the 28th of December, too, and if Jack and Juliet can manage a babysitter, they're all going to go out.

On the first day of Juliet's semester break, Jack's off from work, and they bring David out to one of those cut-your-own-Christmas-tree places, and David tromps around in snow with a wonder that clearly illustrates he doesn't remember last year's snow in Flagstaff, not one bit. Juliet drops him down and shows him how to make snow angels, a mistake she promptly regrets considering only one of them has a proper snowsuit, and it's the almost-two-year-old, not the twenty-two-year-old. Jack cracks up at her screech.

"I have snow under my shirt!" she gasps, ripping off her gloves and frantically clawing at her back.

David thinks it's hilarious too, flinging himself at her and giggling.

"That's what you get," Jack tells her, and when he turns his back for a second to look at the actual trees, she hits him squarely in the back of the head with a snowball.

* * *

Once they're back home, David is fascinated by the fact that there is a tree leaning up against their front windows, waiting out on the porch. "In a few days, we can bring it inside," Jack tells him, and his eyes go wide.

Juliet dumps all their melted-snow wet clothes in the bathtub, wishing they had a fireplace. They drink hot chocolate and she still wishes they had a fireplace. Funny how Jack's parents managed to have one in L.A., the land of We Will Never Actually Need This Fireplace.

David's "hot chocolate" was mostly milk, not enough to get him going on a sugar high (they've learned from past mistakes), and he conks out on the throw rug, his sippy cup a foot away from his head.

"Big morning for him," Jack whispers.

Getting a Christmas tree, playing in the snow, _and_ having hot chocolate? "The biggest."

"Think we should try to move him?"

"Hell no."

They smile at each other, one of those weird in-the-know parent things that happen sometimes these days. She wonders if she should ask if Jack's talked to his own parents since that angry conversation a couple weeks back, if it's weird around the holidays, if he feels bad or angry or guilty or relieved to be so far away, with no promise that they'll ever go back for any particular length of time.

She has no idea.

Jack settles onto the couch, pulling her down, against him. She rests the back of her head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. She wonders how many other girls have been on this couch, left over from Jack's studio apartment days. She wonders why that thought doesn't really bother her anymore, at least not as much as the fact that really, this thing is pretty damn uncomfortable.

(Is this really their home now? This living room still doesn't still like _their_ living room yet, she thinks, but maybe it's not the couch; maybe it's just because she's still not sure how she suddenly got lucky enough to have this life.)

"What do you want for Christmas?" he asks her suddenly.

_World peace? A million dollars?_ "Snow pants," she answers wryly. _This_, she thinks. _Exactly this. David curled up. Us on the couch._

"No, seriously." He reaches up, moving her hair away from his mouth. "If you could have anything. Anything in the world."

_My mother?_ "Other than a new couch, I'd have to think about it. What do you want?" Or, wait, _wait_, is he -

Jack sort of sighs. "I guess I'd have to think about it, too."

* * *

Rachel brings so many toys for David that while they're unloading the car, Juliet asks her if she'd robbed a Toys 'R' Us.

Her sister just rolls her eyes. She's wearing a plaid cap with earflaps that Juliet hopes is being worn ironically. "This is gonna be the first Christmas he really _gets_ it, you know? We gotta have fun."

"Right, because we usually have a miserable time."

"Do you _not_ want me spoiling your bastard offspring? I want to make sure I'm his favorite aunt." Rachel wedges a final bag of presents under one arm, slams the trunk closed as Niall comes running out.

"Do not use that word around him. And you're his _only_ aunt."

Rachel pauses as Niall takes the bag from her. "Not technically." _Tahlia._

"Oh yeah." Juliet hesitates. "I sent them all a Christmas card." Inside it's weirdly quiet and neat. She and Jack had spent the morning cleaning; David is napping.

"Really? Me, too. Where's David?"

_"_Asleep. And_ you_ sent Christmas cards? You couldn't even remember to send thank-you notes when we were growing up. Mom - " she stops.

"Always had to yell at me. Yeah, I know, I know."

"Well, don't get defensive about it. Just because you're always guarded about showing expressions of affection - "

"Excuse me, _I'm_ always guarded?" Rachel mock-explodes. "I don't even know where to _begin_ with that. ...So am I getting the grand tour of this place, or what? And if makes you feel any better, I didn't send Christmas _cards_. I just sent the one card."

"Yeah, I was gonna say." Juliet fakes a hurt expression. "I mean, _I_ didn't get one."

Rachel shrugs. "Sorry. Long-lost sisters only. You don't qualify."


	53. Heart Shaped Box

_"And I've got no illusions about you._  
_And guess what?_  
_I never did._  
_And when I said._  
_When I said I'll take it_  
_I meant,_  
_I meant as is."_

- Ani DiFranco, "As Is"

* * *

All that day and night, their apartment fills up with music: Pearl Jam, L7, Mudhoney. Alice in Chains. The Melvins, The Pixies. Bikini Kill, Dinosaur Jr., My Sister's Machine, Nirvana Nirvana Nirvana, "Heart-Shaped Box" on repeat three times. Rachel and Niall brought their CD player with them, and they spread out their shiny square cases across the warped wood on the living room floor. Niall plays a demo cassette by someone named Beck. David dances; they laugh. Rachel roots through Jack and Juliet's shoebox of cassettes; no CDs for them, not yet. Too expensive. When Jack disappears to put David to bed that first night, and Niall's in the bathroom, Juliet hijacks the music with a Tori Amos tape.

Niall's back first, and he stops and stares at Juliet and Rachel on the floor. "What the hell is this?"

Rachel bursts into giggles. "I'll hold her down, you change the tape."

"Wh - "Juliet begins, before Rachel rolls onto her, catching her at the wrists. They're both a little drunk, and suddenly neither one of them can stop laughing. Juliet's feet are free, and she tries to kick up as Niall dives for the stereo, hits eject. Finally she shoves up, flipping so that she's over Rachel now, holding her down.

"Help," Rachel chokes out between giggles, but Niall's focused on the stereo, and The Melvins start up again.

Juliet holds her sister down, moves so she's actually sitting (gingerly) on top of Rachel. She can feel Rachel shaking underneath her as they both laugh. "She's beeeeen everybody else's girl," Rachel mock-sings in a high-pitched whine.

Then Jack's footsteps are at the other end of the room. Juliet tries to contain herself, wiping tears from her face.

"What the hell is this?" he asks, and she just starts laughing all over again.

* * *

And then, just like that (as usual), Jack's gone. Thirty-six hours at the hospital, six hours off in the middle which means he just sleeps there. By the time she wakes up on the morning of Christmas Eve, his kiss on her forehead in the middle of the night seems more like a dream than a memory.

"So you're OK with that? Really?" Rachel asks her over breakfast, immediately glancing down, buttering a piece of toast. Niall slides the orange juice across the table toward her.

"Well, what else am I supposed to do?" Juliet lifts David into his high chair.

"I don't know, I just mean... Do you miss him?"

_Yes, I miss him,_ her brain responds, but Juliet hesitates, (there's a _him_ she can miss and obviously it must be Jack, because her brain is insisting, _yes, I miss him_) making herself look too busy to answer, filling a sippy cup with apple juice, finding the Cheerios for David.

The truth is, most of the time, she's so busy that she barely has time to notice when he's not around. Classes are challenging to say the least, there's lab time, studying, her job, and in the meantime, she pretty much spends every spare second taking care of David, cooking, cleaning. By the time she falls into bed at night, most of the time it doesn't really matter whether there's someone else in that bed or not. But that's not the whole story, and there's no way she could possibly tell her sister that without it sounding horribly depressing when it isn't.

"Yes, I miss him," she finally says, guardedly, sitting down and reaching for a piece of toast. "But he's doing it for us. And I'll probably be in a worse situation myself once I'm an intern."

"But he'll be through his residency by then, right?" Niall prompts.

What's she supposed to tell him, that doctors _don't_ work a hundred hours a week? "Mm-hm," she mumbles. Tears prick suddenly behind her eyes, and she stands abruptly, making a beeline for the coffeemaker. She knows they're not trying to judge her situation, just learn more about this new path she's embarking on, but - but _David_. Jack's schedule is bad as it is, but OB-GYNs work longer hours, have more unpredictable schedules. What kind of parents are they going to end up being at this rate, if neither of them ever sees him? What kind of... whatever they are... are they going to be, if neither of them ever sees each other? At least right now she has a regular schedule.

She busies herself at the counter, pouring coffee, slowly mixing in milk and sugar, tasting it, adding a little more coffee to the top after she overdoes it with the milk. Are they watching her? Are they eating silently? David starts trying to get Rachel's attention for something - his truck's on the floor, and he wants it, and he's not supposed to have toys at the table unless he's finished eating, but Rachel doesn't know that and Juliet isn't saying anything, frozen here at this counter.

David is making little flying-plane noises now, alternating with vroom-vroom, rolling his truck wheels over the tray of his high chair. Juliet takes a long sip of coffee. She hates these doubts, hates hates hates them. Hates that she feels like sticking to her dreams is nothing but selfishness at this point.

"I think we should go get manicures today," Rachel breaks in.

"What?" Juliet doesn't turn around.

"Niall can stay here with David, can't you?" her sister prompts.

"Sure I can." He answers so easily that Juliet wonders if they've been planning this. "We can play in the snow, right, David?"

David doesn't answer. Juliet imagines him giving Niall the Big-Eyed But Suspicious Look. She finally blinks away her tears, turns around, leaning with the edge of the counter at the small of her back.

Rachel smirks. "It'll be fun, come on. A sister thing."

Juliet stares at her. "Since when were you ever the manicure type?" Besides that, it's not like she and Jack are exactly rolling in cash. They barely make it in a _good_ month, and last month David needed to go to the doctor for an ear infection and also they had a flat tire, and then with the Christmas tree and the lights and the ornaments (which at least they won't have to buy again next year) and presents for everyone... Juliet isn't exactly sure she's supposed to be shelling out cash for something so unnecessary. She hesitates.

Rachel heaves a gigantic, fakely exaggerated sigh, rolling her eyes. "Since today. And it's my treat, so just shut up about it."

* * *

She wakes up early on Christmas morning, but then she's been waking up early for nearly two years now. At the moment it's in the bluish dark of a late winter sunrise, alone as expected, curling her fingers into the palms of her hands. She hadn't had a manicure since her mom's friend Christie took her before her high school graduation. Her nails look great, though; she ceased arguing with Rachel about that.

David is trilling from his room, and she throws off the covers and slides out of bed, stands up into the chilly room. Last year on Christmas morning she was waking up with Jack in Arizona, a suitable distance apart in that bed. The year before that she was in her brand-new one-bedroom apartment in family housing. Every year she is somewhere different. Maybe next year, they'll still be in the exact same place as now. Is that too much to hope for?

In the living room, Rachel and Niall are curled up together on the fold-out couch bed. Juliet gets David into the kitchen before he can wake them, but within an hour, Niall's in the kitchen with her, making coffee and opining on The Sound and The Fury.

Her mind spools backwards to yesterday's breakfast conversation, and she doesn't realize all at once she's stopped responding. Not until Niall trails off, watching her. "You OK, Jules?"

She pauses, suddenly feeling see-through. "Yeah," she finally says.

His eyes move over her face like he wants to say something, but what he says next, she's just not prepared for. "You're happy, right?"

Juliet flinches at his bluntness. "I - yes, I'm happy. I'm just..." _Worried? Lonely? Stressed out?_ "Overwhelmed, sometimes."

Niall looks down into the galaxy of his coffee mug. "I guess I can understand that."

* * *

Jack gets in around 10 a.m., his eyes bloodshot, stubble on his face. David has been poking anxiously around the presents under the tree, probably only minutes away from a tantrum, so good timing there, but first he leans down to kiss Juliet on the couch. "Merry Christmas," he says against her mouth.

"Merry Christmas," she whispers back, pretending Rachel and Niall can't see them.

He smiles, his face still close to hers.

"Do you need to get some sleep?" she asks.

Jack shakes his head, pulling away from her. "After presents."

David really has no clue about presents, just that he _knows_ he wants to rip off the paper, and he squeals in surprise at toy after toy, Rachel taking pictures the whole time. With his birthday only two weeks away, Juliet wonders idly if he's going to think this can be a regular thing. His favorite of the morning is from Rachel and Niall, a Fisher-Price plane complete with plastic people to poke inside through the windows. "Mama, dis one you," he announces, handing a little blond plastic lady over to her before almost instantly demanding it back.

Rachel gives Juliet two photographs in a split frame: the two of them, tiny children with button noses red from the cold and wool caps pulled over their foreheads, gathered into a hug by their mother, who's squatting down between them, a rainbow-colored striped scarf against her throat and trailing to the ground. In the other half of the frame, Juliet is pulling David in his red plastic sled, last winter in Flagstaff. Their breath is puffing out into a gray-white sky; she's smiling, her hair everywhere and her hiking boots pretty much buried in the snow. David's pointing at something out-of-frame, his little mouth opened into an O.

Juliet is half emotional and half embarrassed for some reason; after thanking her sister and setting up the frame on the coffee table, she keeps sneaking glances at those pictures. She knows the intent, but she keeps asking herself, where is her sister in that second picture?

But just then, Jack drops a big package into her lap, and David climbs up as close to her as possible, "helping" her open it. When she lifts out the snow pants, they seem to practically inflate right in front of her. She laughs, Jack grins sheepishly, and Rachel and Niall just look clueless.

"Snow angels," she tries to explain.

* * *

After presents, Jack heads to the back of the apartment to finally get some sleep. The rest of them play with David and his new toys, and there's spiked eggnog like last year. They pause to call assorted relatives before diving back into the eggnog, their music playing constantly, The Yule Log on silent on their little TV. (Jack is here but also not, and she just needs to get used to that.)

She wakes him up for an early dinner when she gets David from his nap, and after they watch silly kids' Christmas shows on TV. The Peanuts special comes on, and they share a smile that seems almost sentimental. Two years ago almost seems like a lifetime ago by now. David points eagerly at Schroeder and his piano, then he's up and running into the playroom/office/fake dining room (they really need to come up with a better name for that room) and hauling his own little piano back into the room.

Whatever notes Jingle Bells begin with, he seems to know already, poking at the yellow key six times, a pause, yellow again, then blue - but the notes all match Schroeder's before he sort of trails off and just begins playing whatever he wants again.

Is that normal? That seems... _hmm._

"Me!" he explains, pointing at the TV.

* * *

When Juliet gets to bed that night, she expects Jack to be sleeping, but instead he's awake, waiting for her, a huge wrapped gift on her side of the bed. "I had one more thing for you," he tells her.

"You didn't have to - " she begins, and he shakes his head.

"I didn't want to give you this one in front of an audience."

"OK," she says slowly, a little unnerved by how closely he's watching her. Whatever it is, it's light, and something seems to slide within it when she tips it to one side. She unwraps the paper to find a plain cardboard box, but when she opens the box, there's another wrapped box inside, and she giggles.

"Thought I'd make you work for it," he teases her, and she rolls her eyes, grinning.

Inside that box is _another_ wrapped box, and then another, like Russian nesting dolls. "OK," she begins, trying to sound wary and skeptical.

"We'll recycle," Jack promises her, sitting up straighter.

But her heartbeat kicks into overdrive when she opens the fifth box, this one a small shoebox left over from David's new sneakers. Because inside that one is a tiny velvet box. The room seems to swim around her. On the bed next to her, Jack eases onto both knees, reaching in and scooping up that little box.

"Juliet," he begins, shifting the box from one hand to the other.

She can't even _think_ straight; her mouth gapes open.

"I've, um," he begins. He looks so uncertain and afraid and she doesn't know what she's supposed to do to reassure him, but she leans over, close to him, cupping the back of his head in her hands. "I... Ever since David was born, I've tried to be a good dad. And I've tried to be good to you. And I hope..." He's almost shaking.

"You're good," she tells him. "You're good at this." She's getting a little teary-eyed, not sure how either one of them has somehow figured out this family, thing, considering where they came from, but... "You're good at this."

He reaches over, touches her face. "Will you marry me?" he almost whispers, drawing back, opening the box._ Where did he... how did he...?_ "It was my grandmother's" - like he needs to explain in the middle of their financial problems why he is holding this box with this beautiful, beautiful diamond ring. Now _he's_ getting a little teary-eyed, and she'd laugh if she could, but instead she's just staring staring staring at the ring, her head swimming and her heart...

"Of course I will. Yes," she gets out, and he almost sags in relief, but a huge smile spreads across his face all the same.

"We can get it resized if - your sister said to check what size your class ring was and - "

Now she's laughing and crying at the same time, glancing down at the manicure her sister had made her get, half-furious that Rachel knew before her, half-glad somehow. "Will you put it on already?"

He leans over to kiss her, sliding the ring onto her finger as he does, and it fits perfectly and right now everything feels pretty fucking perfect. She pulls him to her, and they're pushing all the wrapping paper off the bed, the empty boxes falling with muffled thunks, peeling off each other's clothes and Merry Christmas and peace on earth and fuck, _fuck_, yes, of course she will marry him.

* * *

Her head is pounding with music and adrenaline and too much second-hand smoke and probably, too much happiness. They're all in a throng of bodies at the Nirvana show, sweating and dancing and drinking and this is ridiculous, this is so not her scene and yet it's dramatic and fun and silly and intense all the same, these people taking things way way way too seriously, body-slamming, head-banging, screaming to the lyrics, pounding the air with their fists.

"Heart-Shaped Box," not in their living room on a CD boombox, but here, now, live.

_She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak_  
_I've been locked inside your heart-shaped box for weeks_  
_I've been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap_  
_I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black_

"Hey! Wait!" she and Rachel scream at each other over the din, everyone around them howling the same chorus.

Rachel had greeting them the morning after Christmas with a giant smirk, tilting her head, her eyes going straight to Juliet's left hand. "Lemme seeee," she practically crowed, lunging toward them, giving Juliet a big hug before grabbing at her hand. "God, it's beautiful. It's so Art Deco, oh my god, it looks like Miami Beach." She'd looked up at Jack. "Good job. I know it was your grandmother's, but... just. Good job."

Niall had leaned over, kissed Juliet's cheek, shook Jack's hand, reminding Juliet that somehow, after all, the two guys still barely knew each other. "So when's the big day?"

_Oh. OH. We have to have a wedding._ The thought crashed into her. Somehow she'd imagined being married, and yeah, it really probably wouldn't seem all that different than the life they were already living but - they couldn't afford a wedding, not until... she had no idea how long it would take to have money for something like that, no, they'd have to go to the courthouse unless they waited forever, or...

She slid her eyes over to Jack, who suddenly looked none too cheerful, either. "I guess... well, we can just go to the courthouse," she said slowly, her heart sinking. Juliet had never been one of those little girls who'd wanted to dress up as a bride during playtime, had never been one to daydream about her fairytale wedding. But all the same, the thought of not having one at all seemed to just remind her of all the ways her life was turning out to be not what she'd expected, her heart sinking. The things she was missing out on, by having all of this come so, so early.

"We can wait," Jack promised her. "We can save, and we can do anything you want."

"Why don't," Rachel began slowly, tugging on Niall's wrist. They had some sort of secret eye conversation, ending with Niall nodding. "Why don't you do it in our backyard? We can invite people, have a cookout, put flowers in your hair like a goddamn hippie if you want."

Jack reached over, squeezing her hand. The edges of her new ring dug into his skin, she could feel it. "I love that idea," she says, looking up at Jack.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." But she was trying to think. Will they even have time, money this summer to get to Flag? Maybe next summer would be better? That would be a year and a half out; they could have time to scrounge up money for plane tickets, whatever expenses this backyard wedding would incur, maybe a quick, very local honeymoon if Rachel could watch David. "Maybe the summer after next?" she asked.

"Nuh uh," Rachel told her. "This summer. Why wait?"

_Hey! Wait! Hey! Wait! I got a new complaint! Forever in debt to your priceless advice,_ the crowd is chanting all around them now.

_Hey! Wait!_

Juliet's looking over to Jack at her left, and her sister is pressed up against her right shoulder, and she's there until somehow she's not anymore, Juliet's arm cooling without her sweaty sister right there, but the next time she looks over in the flashing lights, Niall is crouched down on the ground next to Rachel - Rachel, crumpled on the floor, and then she and Jack are trying to hold the crowd back, Niall scooping up her sister like she's no bigger than David, all of them dragging themselves through a sea of bodies, out into the vestibule of the club. Jack is feeling for Rachel's pulse, opening her eyelids, and then there's a black-clothed bouncer, shining his flashlight into Rachel's eyes.

"You take any drugs tonight, sweetheart?" he's asking, and Juliet wants to punch him in the face.

"Just some - only pot," Rachel suddenly mumbles, trying to dig her heels into the greyish white tiles of the floor, pressing against Niall as she tries to get back onto her own two feet.

"You have too much to drink?" His walkie crackles at his hip and Juliet feels dizzy. "How much did you have to drink tonight, sweatheart?"

"She's all right," Jack tells the bouncer. "I'm a doctor, I'll take care of her. Just leave us alone."

"You're gonna have to leave if she can't stand on her own."

_What an asshole._ "We're going."

The ride home is long and dark and - once Rachel stops insisting she's fine - very very quiet.

* * *

Juliet lays out her equipment. She's sterilized everything three times; she can't risk anything.

Her patient is on the table, floating somewhere in twilight sleep. It's just the two of them here. She checks the IV again, changes her gloves. "Is - is he - " the woman mumbles.

"He'll never know," Juliet promises her. She would rub her arm, but she'd have to change her gloves again, and she wants to get this done before it seems like they'd been gone too long. "Just relax. It'll be over before you know it. Think about something nice back home." The yellowy-green lights will flicker when she turns on the machine. This she knows. She's been here before.

She picks up the syringe, taps it, thinking about how she once created life. She can also take it away.

Juliet jerks awake. The bedroom is pitch-black, not even moonlight through the windows tonight, and she drags a hand over her face, her ring getting caught in her hair. Whatever that dream was about, it was... what's the word she's looking for? She's has all kinds of dreams ever since moving here, but - that was...

Unsettling, she decides, sitting up, watching Jack sleep beside her. She lies with him in the dark, watching the minutes tick past for close to half an hour. Finally she gets hungry, slips out of bed without waking him, tiptoeing down the hall, past David's room, past the pile of blankets on the foldout couch in the living room.

There's a dim yellowy light on under the kitchen door, though, and Juliet realizes she didn't really look at who was or wasn't on the couch bed. Niall's at the kitchen table, a cup of tea in front of him, his head in his hands. The little oven-top light is the only thing that's on.

"Hey," she says softly.

"Juliet," he says, and starts to cry, and that's when Juliet feels the axis of everything start to wobble.

She's at his side in a flash. "What, what is it?" she whispers fiercely, grabbing onto him. He grabs back, just as tightly, and she can feel his chest heaving.

"Something's - something's wrong, I just - her tests, they weren't - she needs to get more done after the new year, and - "

Niall can barely breathe, and then suddenly she's right there with him, only her knees give out and she's just there on the kitchen floor beside him, like she's about to beg, beg him to take it all back, and how long Rachel took until she was willing to enter into a relationship, not until she was better, and _why_ wasn't Rachel in that second picture, _why_ did she want to make sure Juliet's wedding was this summer instead of next and no - no - no -

"But you don't know anything for sure yet, right?" She is trying to stay calm. On the outside.

He shakes his head, fiercely. "She's going to call Rose, if she has to - and, but Tahlia's biracial and the doctor said - he said, that makes it harder, and - she's just, always taking pictures, and sometimes I think - "

"No," she tells him, firmly. _"No._ You don't think that. Just - just don't."

"I - she didn't want you to know, and I'm so sorry. I just... I don't know what I'll do, if - "

"There is no if," she tells him. "Not yet." Her voice wobbles there. She stands up, digging her heels into the floor the way Rachel did only hours before. Somehow she finds a chair, drags it toward him. Her fingers dig into his forearm, hard. _"You call me,"_ she says, and her voice is so strong and forceful it almost scares her. "If Tahlia isn't a match - you listen to me, Niall. You listen to me. If Tahlia isn't a match -_ you call me._ You call me."

* * *

**Whew. This chapter was hard to write. Very, very hard. Please excuse any errors. And please, please leave a review!**


	54. Take Care of What You Need To

_Poor little friendly ghost,_  
_Wondering why her whole house feels haunted._

- Ani DiFranco, "Swim"

* * *

**Spring/Summer 1993**

_4/16/93_

_Dear Juliet,_

_Hey, what's up? I thought I'd write you a letter because maybe we should get to know each other better, & Rachel gave us your #, but I tried to call & it said that # wasn't in service so we must have written it down wrong. So hopefully you'll write back and you can tell us the right # too. Oh also, my mom said maybe soon we can start getting Prodigy or CompuServe or something. Doc you guys have one of those? B/c we could send each other messages on the computer if you do._

_I heard you & Jack got engaged on Christmas, congrats! That's so cool. When is the wedding?_

_So this spring I've been really busy 'cuz my friend from Robotics & I won 1st place in the school's fair, which means we're going on to the county one. The Sat. before the school one, we stayed up ALL NIGHT. Our project is this machine that trains dogs to act out a series of physical commands, including pressing a button if they want to get a biscuit, but they can only get one every so often (or else they'd get fat). It's supposed to be a way of keeping their minds active but mainly it was fun to build the machine and test it out. Vincent was our first test subject but he learned too fast (he's like the smartest dog ever, I swear) & I had to borrow our neighbors' dogs too. We're soooo excited & I REALLY hope we can place in county._

_Anyway... everything is fine here. Mom is still... Mom. Bernard started jogging a couple months ago. My mom is worried he's gonna have a heart attack or something. She keeps saying, "Remember, you're a dentist, you are not Jesse Owens."_

_Oh, also I'm going to the jr. prom, but that's not til May. My mom is going to take me dress shopping up in LA so that should be cool as long as she doesn't get all sentimental or anything. I'm just going w/a friend but still it's exciting to get all dressed up & everything. And actually she said maybe we'll get a dress for my Sweet 16 too. Did you have a Sweet 16? What was it like? What about Rachel's?_

_So speaking of Rachel... I guess you prob. know I wasn't a match. I'm really sorry because I def. would of donated if I could. It really sucks. I'm so sorry. Why didn't you guys mention when we met you that she'd had cancer before? I feel really bad. I hope she's gonna be OK. She didn't want to talk too much about it but my mom said probably R. will have to have chemo again. It's OK if you want to tell me more, I won't be upset. I think R. was scared of upsetting us.  
_

_So anyway, write back when you have time. I hope med school isn't too hard. Say hi to David and Jack for me._

_Love,_

_Tahlia_

* * *

Juliet tucks the letter back into its envelope. Of _course_ Tahlia had tried to call during the 10 or so days that their phone had been turned off.

It was the winter's fault, really - their first winter here, Juliet's first real winter, period, since she was a kid. For starters, their apartment was old and drafty with too-high ceilings and single-pane windows, and being on the first floor, they were also probably pouring 75 percent of their heat directly into the units upstairs. She and Jack had vastly underestimated how steep the heating bills would be.

Even so, they'd been scraping by all right until one day in early February when Juliet, on her way to bring David to daycare, stepped right onto an icy patch on the top step of their porch, and the next thing she knew, she was tumbling down the stairs, her left shoulder - and then the rest of her - smacking into the freezing-cold sidewalk.

She'd lain there, gasping for breath and crying out in pain, cold tears leaking from her eyes, and yelling at David to stay on the porch. He didn't listen, of course, but he didn't slip, and soon his anxious little face was hovering over hers. It felt like she had broken glass under her skin, her left arm bent at an odd angle, and as she slowly sat up, mentally replaying what had just happened, she realized she'd heard some kind of sickening pop.

_You dislocated my shoulder!_ she wanted to scream at the icy steps, or more accurately at the universe, and what was she supposed to do now? Somehow she got them both back into the house, cradling her left elbow with her good arm, and located the phone number of the nice older couple upstairs, probably around her dad's age, and within 10 minutes, a wary David was under the care of Edith Dawson. And Juliet was in the back of a cab en route to the hospital, trying not to pass out, and switching her engagement ring to her right hand, because the fingers on her left were already swelling up.

If Jack had been home, she probably would have asked him to pop it back in for her, and hey! It would have been totally free. Financial ruin averted.

But as she tried desperately to keep her eyes from crossing after an ER nurse gave her a shot of Demerol, she considered that maybe that wouldn't have been the best option. And by the time she was leaving, her arm in a sling and a prescription for five tablets of Percoset in her purse, all she could think was how glad she was she hadn't tried to tough this one out.

Juliet got back to the ER lobby just as Jack was came off the elevator. She'd called his floor once she'd settled into her lengthy ER wait, telling the nurse there not to scare him, "Our son's fine, it's just that I - it's just that I - " she'd started stammering at that point, and clearly the pain was getting to her more than she'd thought - "I fell," she finished lamely. God, she felt like she was going to pass out. The nurse told her - she could hear her vaguely, through the haze - that she would pass on the message.

Despite the DO NOT PANIC warning, Jack still looked like he'd been panicking. "I'm so sorry, I was in a surgery and - " he told her then, rushing up to her. It was clear he was trying to figure out whether he could hug her without hurting her. "I got here as soon as I could." She managed a one-armed embrace, Jack smoothing down the back of her hair. "Are you OK, are you in pain?"

"I'm all right," she told him. "It hurt like crazy, but they gave me a shot and I just wanna go home and sleep forever."

Jack sighed, searching her eyes. "Are you going to be all right to get home? I'll have them call you a cab. I have to go back to work."

"I know," she told him, because she did.

Her shoulder felt a bit better every day, even though of _course_ it had to be the one with the weird problems to begin with. And even though the Percoset gave her unbelievably scary dreams about being in some kind of deep, dark hole and coughing up blood, well, it kept the _real_ pain away.

But then the ER bill arrived, which presented actual waking-life problems: eight hundred and fucking fifteen dollars. Juliet had stared at the invoice, her pulse racing, trying to figure out exactly what they were supposed to do, tears pricking into her eyes. She'd lost her dad's health insurance upon finishing undergrad, and she was tempted to simply not pay this damn thing at all. But Jack _worked_ at that hospital. And it was the university medical center, which meant they could probably track her down and place a hold on her next semester's registration. Just their luck to end up screwed by a medical bill, of all things.

In the end, she called the billing office, convinced them to accept half a payment for the time being - she made the check out for $408, throwing in the extra fifty cents for karma's sake.

Karma wasn't paying attention though, after throwing them into the downward spiral of rent being six days late, and then two missed phone bills in a row, which meant... well, they found out what it meant.

Juliet had called Rachel collect from their second-floor neighbors' phone, telling her to call their number in an emergency. That was pretty much that, until their phone line was finally put back into service. Until their phone rang that same night, with Margo on the line. "So what was all that about?"

"What... I don't know what you mean. Margo, I'm sorry, David's asleep already or I'd put him on the line. Jack's working, but I can have h-"

"Oh, cut the crap, honey," Margo said affably. "Your phone was shut off, wasn't it? Good god, I know it's one thing for you kids to not want us to pay for a wedding, but there's no reason you have to live like _this_."

_Pay for...?_ Juliet's mouth opened wordlessly. They had offered to pay for their _wedding?_ Jack hadn't said a word about that. They had nothing saved so far, and every month she thought they'd start to get ahead, but they didn't, and of course the huge irony was that if they had simply gotten married at the fucking courthouse, she would have been covered under Jack's health insurance and they wouldn't have come close to having such a steep ER bill. She'd been feeling increasingly panicky in recent weeks, especially ever since Niall had called and told her Tahlia wasn't a match. Rachel, in true Avoidant Sister fashion, hadn't said a word about anything, except that she keeps pushing Juliet to get married this summer, which... Juliet can barely even stand to think about that means in Rachel's mind.

Anyway, Margo took Juliet's silence as a reason to keep talking. "Whether Jack's told you or not - "_ (Told me you offered to PAY FOR OUR WEDDING?, _Juliet wants to ask/yell) - "Christian's been..." (here, Margo fumbles for words) "...been _fine_ for almost 10 months now, and all this sidestepping and refusing visits and such is just starting to look petty."

"I'm not - I'm not - we're not trying to be petty." Juliet was thinking about all the things Margo didn't know about David these days. That he was fascinated by spiders, terrified of thunderstorms. That 'watermelon' was still impossible for him to say, and he called it 'wamma mama.' That the bunnies were his favorite animal at the petting zoo at the Ann Arbor fall festival, band he was afraid of the goats until he watched them for awhile, and then had tried to headbutt Jack's legs. Silly things, unimportant things. Things she would have given anything for her own mother to know.

"I'm sure _you're_ not, Juliet." Margo heaved an enormous sigh. "If something like this happens again, you have to let me know. I can't imagine it's easy for you two out there. Do you need money right now? Because I can send you - "

"No, no, we're fine, thank you. It's just because... it's just b-b-because I fell." There, that sick feeling washing over her again. From thinking about her mom, maybe, or else the memory of that shoulder dislocation must have hurt more than she'd remembered. She gripped the edge of the kitchen doorframe, explaining into the phone about the ice on the porch stairs, and the ER, and the bill being more than they could deal with, but it was a one-time thing, and they're _fine_, really...

"If you say so," Margo answered lightly.

* * *

Now Juliet slips the envelope from Tahlia into the top drawer of her desk. Her sister (right?) sounds so innocent, and happy, and well-raised, secure in the knowledge that whatever had happened in the past, she had a family, a good one, now, and nothing about that was due to change anytime soon. Juliet and her mother had essentially switched roles when she was 15, and she's not sure what she missed by that, exactly, but... something. She definitely missed something. And Rachel was, at least since the age of ten - which was what, 1977? - sort of fucked-up and feral and avoidant.

Tahlia has it lucky. Of course she's not a match. Of course she's not.

Juliet shuffles through the rest of the mail. Heating bill, electric bill, Good Housekeeping (what a fucking joke - literally; Rachel had signed her up for it to be funny), hospital bill (they're supposed to be paying 50 bucks a month until the rest of it is paid off), junk mail, an envelope with her name typed on it.

Flipping it over, she finds no return address, so she opens it, and a check flutters to the floor. She picks it up, unfolding the note that was in the envelope.

_Jack doesn't need to know. Take care of what you need to. - Margo_

The check is for $500, made out to cash. Juliet stares and stares at that check. She deals with their finances, since Jack has little time to do anything other than work. He didn't _have_ to know managing their finances would get a little easier for the time being, right? Hey, he hadn't even told her his parents had offered to pay for their wedding. And he hadn't told her his father was sober, much less how long it had been.

She chews on the inside of her lip. They were allowed to keep secrets from each other, right? Jack obviously had. And Juliet already has a big one, far bigger than this. This seems kind of mild in comparison.

Juliet tucks the check into the inside pocket of her purse.

* * *

Jack's home for dinner that night, and probably for the first time in a week, they make dinner together, chopping up tomatoes for sauce, David trying to tell Jack about a dog they saw at the park this afternoon. With the sauce on the stove and water boiling for pasta, Jack looks over Juliet's lab report for school, pointing out something she'd missed.

"Well, I had a whining toddler on my lap while I was typing it," she snaps. Sure, he has to work all the time (ALL THE TIME), but she's in med school, and she has her part-time job for _woooo! soooo important, wowwww!_ The LaFleur Project! _And_ she takes care of David, manages their money as best she can, cooks, cleans, she's a fucking Wonder Woman. Then almost recoils, because how is any of this insanity more his fault than hers?

Jack looks taken aback. "Juliet, I was just trying to help."

"I know," she relents. Stupid secrets hanging in the air between them. "I'm just... a little overworked right now. I'm sorry." And instantly she feels guilty, because Jack hasn't slept in probably 24 hours. At least she gets to sleep. When she's not having strange dreams that wake her up, anyway. Maybe this house is haunted. Nothing like this used to happen before they moved here.

"Why don't you go relax for a little while? I can finish with dinner."

"It's OK, really. I'm fine." Jack looks like he's going to argue, and she holds up a hand to stop him. "I want to see you."

He breaks into a smile at that, reaching out for her hips, pulling her closer to him. "I want to see you too."

"Hmm," she sighs against him. She feels better just having him hold her, looping her arms around his neck as he leans down to kiss her. He's warm and solid and real. God, she really does miss him when he's not around. Maybe they should just forget this whole doctor thing and run off to Flagstaff with David and be goat farmers or something on a hippie commune.

_Everything will be OK_, she tells herself, wondering if it's a lie. But his lips are on hers and she closes her eyes and everything really _does_ feel pretty damn OK.

* * *

He's on top of her, her legs still around his hips as they catch their breath, his big hands on each side of her head, and the way he's resting on his elbows lets her see the shiny burn scar on his forearm until he lowers his head, meets her lips. She digs her fingers into the hair at the back of his head, telling herself, _This is real, remember this,_ before he finally crashes down in the sheets next to her and she presses her face into her shoulder.

This is the part she doesn't like, the part _after_, where they have to cuddle and talk. She'd rather get up and find something to eat than lie here in these pale blue sheets completely vulnerable. But they actually don't speak for a few minutes, not until he nips at her shoulder. "What are you thinking about?" he asks.

She rolls onto her side to face him, pulling up the sheet to cover herself. Not like he hasn't seen everything already. "Nothing much, just that I have some scans to take today."

He nods, his green eyes locking onto hers. "I heard Karen lost her baby." His voice is casual.

"I can't really talk about that. Doctor-patient confidentiality." Her face is almost paralyzed, it's so composed.

"Probably for the best. What happened with Karen, I mean."

"I really can't..."

"I just wanted to say-"

_"Goodwin,"_ she cuts him off sharply. "I said I don't want to talk about this." Her mouth is full of unspoken secrets and! and! and! she just wants to Help People, capital letters. But, conversely, there's also some kind of almost murderous rage bubbling up in her lately, the kind of thing she's having to struggle to tamp down, and it's been getting harder and harder.

She has sparring practice later today and it can't come soon enough; she knows she needs it.

Another thing she knows: She will do whatever it takes to keep people safe. Whatever it takes. And she will lie and she will sneak around if she has to and she will FUCKING DO WHATEVER IT TAKES.

She rolls away from him again, her eyes dropping closed.

"You did the right thing," Goodwin says in a small, fading voice. "Take care of what you need to. He's not going to find out..."

Juliet opens her eyes again, except now she's in bed in Michigan, in her _real_ life, and it's Jack breathing quietly next to her in the dark, not some old guy in a sun-drenched room, and that was a really, _really_ weird dream, and who the hell was_ that?_

* * *

(Secrets start to taste bad after awhile.)

* * *

This is what she'd wanted so badly. She did the right thing. Only now he's going to find out.

Jack had been working the day she took David to the lab. She held him while he screamed, smiled encouragingly when they let him choose a toddler-safe lollipop - he'd chosen green - and read him a storybook in the lobby while his tears dried. The tech was supposed to fax the results, whatever they were, to one Dr. Ronald T. Nichols. When she finally packed David back into the car, she kissed him on the top of his head, wondering if she was the Worst Mother in the World.

As she'd started the car, she met his eyes in the rearview. The same blue as hers, which usually fills her with happiness. Only David's lower lip had trembled once more. "It's all done with, baby," she'd tried to reassure him. "It's all done with."

Only it's not.

She hangs up the phone, wishing she could feel happier about this. She's supposed to feel happier about this. She wants to call Rachel, _right fucking now._ So they can scream and cheer and cry and laugh.

Only she should have just _told_ him. It's just, she hadn't wanted him to think she was the kind of person who would do anything, _anything_ to make sure her sister was safe. And no, he hadn't been there that summer Rachel was so sick, that summer Juliet was first pregnant. Juliet had wanted David for David, or at least, she'd wanted him so she wouldn't end up alone. And OK, so that's actually a pretty terrible reason to have a baby. But not as terrible as having a baby so there'd be another potential donor in the world.

But how was Jack supposed to believe that? What if he hadn't? Better to test David, and when the results came up negative, as they were almost definitely going to, she could pretend the whole thing had never happened.

And she would have been disappointed, possibly devastated. But also relieved, in a sick Worst Sister in the World way.

Outside, Jack is sitting on their paint-peeling back steps reading a medical journal; David's trampling the patchy grass with the aid of the red-and-yellow plastic Little Tikes car Margo and Christian must have spent a fortune to ship. The patches of mud are already covered in tire tracks. The day is cool and gray and humid, the kind of weather that makes her feel like they're suspended inside a raindrop.

They both look up when she hesitates in the doorway, David calling out to her. Jack is watching her face, though.

She clears her throat. "I have to tell you something. It's really, really important."

* * *

**This is where I ask you to please, please leave a review. The previous chapter was a huge challenge to write, and I admit it was a pretty big letdown that I only heard from three people. I am not trying to complain, and I will finish this story, but I need to know that people are still engaged in reading it to stay happy, so please, let me know!**


	55. Perimeter

_If my life were a movie_  
_ I would light a cigarette_  
_ and the smoke would curl around my face_  
_ everything I do would be interesting_  
_ and I'd play the good guy_  
_ in every scene._

- Ani DiFranco, "What If No One's Watching"

* * *

They both look up when she hesitates in the doorway, David calling out to her. Jack is watching her face, though.

She clears her throat. "I have to tell you something. It's really, really important."

Jack looks curious, but there's something else coloring his face. Not fear. Guilt, maybe, and Juliet thinks about the things she knows, the things he hasn't told her, reminding herself that those things aren't important right now. Unless he hasn't told her because he has cold feet about marrying her. Sure, he would want to keep his drunk of a father at arm's length by not letting him pay for a wedding... if his father had still been drinking. Which he's not, right?

OK, OK, not important right now. This isn't supposed to be about them, right? (Except, hello, Captain Obvious, it clearly is.)

Jack moves over to make room for her on the back steps. She slides into the space, keeping her knee from bumping into his. David has abandoned his toy car in favor of poking a stick into a mud puddle, a truly fascinating activity for a two-year-old.

"I um," she begins. Brilliant. This is clearly why she's got a full ride to medical school. Her pulse is racing. _Calm on the outside, calm on the outside. _But then it all comes out in a rush. "I - I guess first I should apologize for not telling you. But um... Tahlia's not a match for Rachel and a few weeks ago I took David for preliminary bloodwork to see if he could be, and the tests came back good, so they want to do some more but they think it looks promising and -" She stops to take a breath. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

Jack blinks several times. "So why are you telling me now?"

Uh... what? He's not angry? "Because he's a potential match."

"So if he wasn't, never you would have told me?" His nostrils flare, and the rest of his face hardens. _Here we go. _She hasn't seem him this angry in... "How the HELL could you have not told me this?"

"It's not - I - you weren't around," she says lamely. Once the words are out of her mouth, she realizes that was pretty much the most resentful, accusatory, pass-the-buck thing she possibly could have said.

He shoots to his feet. "You're right, Juliet, I wasn't around. Because I'm out there _every day_ trying to make a better life for all of us! David is my son too. He's only two years old, goddammit! He is a real person, he is NOT just some - some extension of you that you can try to do whatever the hell you want with!"

_Like your father?_

She's on her feet too, and these small, narrow steps means they're as close to face-to-face as they can be, except with her craning her neck up to see him. This is her sister's life on the line, though, and now that her adrenaline's going, she's not going to step down, she's not. "I never said he was! EVER. I'm the one who's here for him every day, Jack. Every day. And I know you're working to support us all. I know that, Jack. But you can't ever say I didn't - "

"Is this why you had him?" he interjects.

"What?" she asks, stalling for time, hoping it inserts some measure of plausible deniability, even though she knows - oh god, she knows - exactly what he means. (And what will David think, someday?)

"Did you have him in case he could donate to your sister?" Jack asks though clenched teeth, and she'd imagine he'd step closer to her, if there was any extra room at all. She can see his hands, gathered into fists, and somewhere in her mind this gray day reminds her of a metal hallway, flickering yellow-green lights, but she doesn't know why.

"No," she breathes, imagining an ocean filling up that hallway, engulfing them. It must have been one of those dreams she's been having. "No. No, no, I didn't."

"But you already knew by that point you weren't a match for your sister. Didn't you?" He's calmed down now. Maybe. Or anyway, he sounds more reasonable.

_Please_, she thinks._ Just... please._ "I was afraid of being alone. I told you that. I know it's still a stupid reason, but I didn't - I didn't have him to try to save her."

"You didn't want to be alone. If something happened to your sister, you didn't want to be alone."

Does he wish for a different life? Is that why he's asking? A different life, where he didn't have to come home to toddler temper tantrums? To "I made acorn squash" or "Do you have gas money?" To a girlfriend/fiancee/whatever who lies to him? Would he rather come home to one who _isn't_ dizzyingly exhausted most of the time? Who had adequate time for hair and makeup and blow jobs?

She tightens her jaw. He can't see her crying. He just _can't._ If he doesn't want her, doesn't want this life because why else is he asking, then fine, FINE. "What do you want from me, Jack? Would you rather I aborted him?"

Somehow on these tiny steps, he does step closer, and she can feel his body heat on this oddly chilly day for May. "Don't you even say that," Jack hisses.

Juliet looks over at David, who's stopped his mud puddle investigation. He's staring at them with an open mouth, and she hopes he doesn't have a good enough memory to ever dredge this up to figure out what these words mean.

"I don't - I just - I'm sorry I didn't tell you. About the blood work. I was afraid you would think I just had him for..." She chokes on her words. "For spare parts." As though their son was just a rusted old van ready to be tinkered with, like DeGroot's wheezing VW parked in the alley behind the physics building.

Jack backs down somewhat, seems to draw his body away from her. Across the yard, David turns away too, risks reaching into the mud puddle with his bare hands, something he's generally scolded for. This time she says nothing.

"What I'd meant," Jack begins, stonily, "or _tried_ to mean, is that by now, the reasons you had him? They don't really matter."

"No," she almost whispers. "They don't."

Jack's eyes look so dark, angry in this pale light. He presses his lips together. "You know there are risks. Infection, a reaction to the anesthesia. What if something goes wrong?"

She feels tears prick into her eyes. Things she can't even imagine. Or, can. Just that she doesn't want to. "The odds of that are -"

"I know," he relents. "But it's also painful. And what are we supposed to tell him someday? Do we even have the right to make this decision for him?"

"I don't know." For some reason she remembers that night Rachel crept into her bed back in Flagstaff. What was it, the first night of her first round of chemo? Rachel telling Juliet about those dreams she'd had, that Juliet had died. And then, months later, her sister finally coming out with it - what if _Rachel_ was supposed to be the one who died?

Juliet feels sick and dizzy and the stairs beneath her feet seems to rock as though there's a bomb under the earth.

She steps down the side, landing hard in the wet grass, turning from Jack, looking over at David. "But how are we supposed to tell him one day that he could have saved his aunt's life, and didn't?"

Jack watches her for a long moment, his nostrils flaring again. Finally he sits down on the top step again, his muddy running shoes on the cracked concrete patio, if they can even _call_ it a patio, when it's so tiny. He watches David play for a long moment. Juliet watches Jack.

"You really didn't tell me because I'd think you had him to be a donor?"

"I - it just seemed easier to go ahead and do it. They told me there would only be a very small chance he could match. And yeah, I didn't want you to think that I..." She shrugs, nodding when he looks back to her.

Jack looks at her then, really looks at her, as she leans against the house, wrapping her cardigan more tightly around herself. "You doubt yourself so much," he says. What's that supposed to mean? He's the one who maybe doesn't want to get married after all.

But then she remembers his uncertain, halting proposal on Christmas night. "So do you."

Jack looks like maybe he wants to resume their argument again, but then his mouth twists into a smile. Or a sort-of smile. "Don't close me out like that again. He's my son, too. Don't ever lie to me."

She has a brief moment where she pictures what Jack might have been like as a toddler, throwing himself on the ground, screaming _Mine, mine._ David is probably easy in comparison.

"I won't," she tells him.

Jack sighs heavily. She tells herself this is all over, but she can feel the anger still radiating off him when he stands up and goes into the house by himself.

* * *

She thinks she's going crazy.

She thinks she's catching it from DeGroot.

The Volkswagen project has ground to a halt, as it seems like he couldn't find the right mechanic, or the right parts, or some combination of the two. He was so grouchy about it for so long that Juliet was almost tempted to stalk off and find someone to teach _her_ how to fix the damned thing. Ha, like that'd ever work.

Anyway, now he's super mental over some new, top-secret machine (or... or something, who knows, she's just the secretarial drone) up on the fourth floor. And now as Juliet watches him pace franctically around the front room, she resolves to start brewing weaker coffee for the department. And doesn't he have his own private office in the back, anyway? What the hell is he always out here for, anyway?

Juliet pauses in her paper-clip organizing marathon to look at him. "Is there anything..." she begins slowly.

DeGroot waves a hand at her without looking her way. "No - no - I just need to - I usually run when I need to think, but it's too goddamn hot outside right now."

She leans against the desk. Is she outta here at the end of this semester, onto another random assignment? Or is she stuck here for the next three years? No one's explained that part to her yet. "My fiance runs," she finally says. "When he has time." If Jack can still be considered her fiance. Considering they've barely spoken in two days. Or three. Or four. And they've stayed on separate sides of the bed, and this morning he didn't come into the bathroom while she was showering to brush his teeth like he normally does when he has a 7 a.m. shift starting. He'd waited until she was done.

DeGroot - why does she want to call him the mad scientist? she's never been much for nicknaming - pauses, though, now, his head turning slowly to her, at an angle, his eyes boring into hers.

_Shit_. Why did she bring up Jack to him? She made it a point to talk as little as possible about her personal life, trying to steer clear of the nonstop stream of weird questions aimed at her whenever she does.

But "How's everything going with you two?" is all he says.

Juliet forces a smile. "Fine. Great."

"And everything's good? Everyone's healthy? Your shoulder's better? No sicknesses, no bad dreams?"

Bad dreams? _What... the... FUCK._ She grabs onto the desk. What could he possibly know about - "No, we're good. Really. Really, really good. So you're just worried about that new equipment up on four?" she asks, trying to change the subject. "I thought you had those technicians coming in this afternoon."

"They _were_ here." DeGroot frowns. "Then they started jabbering about something in Korean and said they couldn't help me."

Juliet means to lighten the mood. "Maybe because it's on the fourth floor?"

"What do you mean?"

"Four? It's considered unlucky to Koreans. Their word for four sounds too similar to their word for death."

Although it's not possible for DeGroot's jaw to literally become unhinged, it sure as hell looks like it. "Where did you - how do you know that?" he asks almost breathlessly.

Where _does_ she know that? "I must have read it somewhere, I guess."

DeGroot advances on her now. Jesus, why had she opened her mouth in the first place? Sure, his pacing was driving her crazy, but this isn't any better. "Are you sure you read it somewhere? Think. Think really, really hard. Like maybe you knew some Korean words, or you had a close friend, or...?"

She starts backing away, shaking her head. _Please, please, I need a different job next year._ "No. No, I just... I'm going to make some more coffee."

Juliet flees down the hall. Whatever is going on in that weird brain of his, she wants no part of it. She's tired of waiting for him to make sense.

* * *

Waiting. It feels, actually, like she's always waiting for something.

This time she's waiting for last exam to be over, waiting to hear if she's stuck with DeGroot another year, waiting for her grades to come in. David's test results to come in. Something (anything) to happen with Jack. In a way, it feels like last year's riots all over again.

Only now she can go outside, no imaginary fence closing her into a predetermined perimeter.

After a promised exchange of chores for childcare, she leaves David with Mrs. Dawson upstairs, leaves a note for Jack. Ties on her sneakers. The concrete smacks hard under her feet; the sneakers are old and she never does this and she's breathing heavy by the end of the second block, but she doesn't stop.

If she could take this all back, never have taken David for the second round of tests - hell, never had taken David for the _first_ round of tests - would she?_ No. No no no no,_ she tells herself with each smack of her shoes against the sidewalk. Even though Jack didn't even go with them to the lab that second time, even though she asked. Juliet loves her son and she loves her sister and she loves Jack, but she's not trading her sister's life so Jack can feel some particular way about Juliet,_ no way no way no way._

(Why does Jack like running so much? It feels like punishment.) She hooks a right toward campus, panting past overflowing garbage cans and frisbee-tossing frat boys, finds herself in front of the library. The stairs there aren't steep enough and there aren't nearly enough for what she needs right now, but she starts up and down, up and down, _no way no way no way_ ringing out in her head.

How is she possibly supposed to make things right?

It's dusk by the time she walks back, a cramp in her hip and her bad shoulder burning. The porch light is already burning; Jack's in the front room with David. Sesame Street on the TV. Jack just stares at her, her face covered in sweat and tears. "I got your note."

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"Sorry for..." He blinks. "You went running?"

"I'm sorry for not telling you when I should have," she bursts out. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you I got him tested. I'm sorry I didn't even tell you about David existing in the first place. I don't know why - I don't know why I can't let you in sometimes. I get that you don't probably don't want to marry me anymore. I can give you your grandmother's ring back. I'm sorry. But... my sister."

Jack's face is transforming now, she can see it, from concern to anger to confusion to... "What makes you think I don't want to marry you anymore?" He's on his feet now.

She looks around their living room, toys scattered everywhere, on the floor an empty mug ringed on the inside with dried coffee. Her embryology textbook and papers in a stack on the coffee table, his stinky running socks in a pile underneath. Closes her eyes so she doesn't have to see their life right now. Their too-busy, too-poor, perfect(?) shared life. "Your parents offered to pay for our wedding," she whispers. "And your father isn't drinking anymore, but you didn't even say anything to me. So - "

Jack's right up against her, his hands on her wrists. "Juliet, look at me."

She opens her eyes. She can feel the way they're filling with tears. She can feel the way he can see through her, just like that first night they met.

"I still want to marry you," he almost whispers, stepping closer, right up against her, even though she's still dripping with sweat.

"I still want to marry you too," she gets out, her voice almost drowned out by Bert and Ernie, which makes her sob. Or laugh, she can't tell. Maybe it's not so bad if he can see through her like this. Maybe it's OK. Maybe it's good.

Jack presses his forehead against hers. "I should have told you, too. I just didn't want them geting tangled up in our lives again."

"They're your parents," she says gently, sliding her arms around his waist.

"It's - complicated."

She doesn't mean to smile, but... "What isn't?"

He closes his eyes, his face still against hers. He smooths his hand over the back of her hair. "I know. I know. And we're never going to have the money for a wedding if we have to do it ourselves."

"Maybe when David's old enough to drive us to the church?"

He smiles, opening his eyes, sliding his hands to her hips. His foot slides forward, in between hers. "I have to tell you something else."

She feels her silly grin fade. "OK."

"Dr. Nichols called while you were out." Jack looks serious. Really serious. Is this good or bad? What _is_ good or bad to Jack? Her heart flips over. Then a smile appears. "David's a match. Call your sister and tell her we're going to do it."

Her cry of joy is loud enough to almost - but not quite - miss the next part: "And then let's call my parents and tell them we want to have a wedding."

She practically throws herself on him now, touching his face, kissing him, and he's grabbing her, lifting her up and swinging her around, and _fuck_ her horrible weird dreams, _fuck_ her stupid job, because her cheeks hurt from smiling too hard and her heart is slamming in her chest, and somewhere in her mind, Juliet knows that every happy photograph Rachel's ever taken still doesn't quite add up to _this_, here, right now.


	56. Leave the Gun, Take the Shoes

**Thank you to makealist & eyeon for suggestions and advice! This chapter goes out to them.**

* * *

_Teach me to unworry;  
I will teach you to unhide  
in the city where they don't need X-rays  
to see each other's insides._

- Ani DiFranco, "Unworry"

* * *

To Juliet, at least, their first few hours back in L.A. look and feel like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Just the first few hours.

But hey, at least it's something.

Margo and Christian are so glad to see them (or more realistically, David) that Margo actually _cries_ at the airport. David clearly doesn't remember his grandparents, and he's shy at first, but Margo tells Jack to sit up front with his father, and she slides into the back with Juliet and David, doting on him in the car, handing him a new toy, and that seems good enough for him.

For some reason Margo and Christian had decided to get a dog. Yes, they actually became responsible for another living creature, but oddly enough, Casper, their Australian shepherd, is remarkably well-behaved and calm. They pause at the front door so that Christian can scratch him behind the ears, and Juliet doesn't miss Jack's _what the fuck?_ sideways glance at her.

She shrugs. _Don't ask me to explain your parents._

In the two weeks since Jack had called them, Margo and Christian had Jack's old room repainted in bright, child-like primary colors. Underneath the big windows is a white toddler-sized bed with a safety railing, and David is thrilled to get a "big boy" bed for the first time. Juliet tries to explain to him that he has to stay in his bed all night like a good boy, worrying that he's not going to listen to those instructions one bit, and how much of their house is even slightly child-proofed? She's going to have to make sure all the doors are locked; there's a pool in back.

Margo tells him this will be his bed whenever he comes to visit, and just this once, he's allowed to jump on the bed once he takes his shoes off. That will be a bad habit to break, but then, what isn't?

The Shephards take them out for a fancy dinner, at a place far nicer than either Jack or Juliet is used to these days, valet parking outside and and a pianist at a baby grand inside. They're seated not far from him, and Juliet's fears that David won't be able to behave himself fade when he cranes his neck to see the player's hands on the keys. "Wanna watch," he says, tugging on Juliet's arm. "Wanna_ watch!"_

"You can go over if you're very good and very quiet," Margo tells him like she's his mother. "Stay right there where we can see you, and don't bother the nice man."

David's out of his booster seat before Juliet can interject. She's not so sure teaching David it's OK to wander around a restaurant is acceptable behavior, but she keeps her eye on him, and sure enough, he stands at a respectable distance from the pianist, his hands behind his back like he's a tiny butler.

Sometimes she's not even sure where, exactly, they got this kid from.

"Well," Christian says warmly, once they're done reading menus. "We're very glad you're all here." He raises his glass of sparkling water. Awwwkward. "Welcome home."

Everyone clinks glasses. Juliet smiles politely.

"So we have a lot of work to do," Margo announces. She reaches into her oversized handbag, pulls out a thin binder. "I've made appointments with three potential venues, for tomorrow afternoon. It was difficult finding anywhere that still had openings for this summer, so we might have to consider early fall, but all these places said they might be something they can work out." She winks. "Which probably means if we pay them enough."

Juliet feels Jack shift next to her uncomfortably.

"Then, let's see," Margo continues. She digs through her handbag, pulls out a pen. "Jack... you and Dad and Grandpa have an appointment at Brooks Brothers Sunday at noon. Bring David along and see what they can do with him, too. Juliet, we have an appointment with Vera Wang at 11:30, she's supposed to be very good, what all the girls want these days, and if you want to invite that friend of yours along - David's godmother, what's her name - "

"Gemma," Juliet quietly supplies. She'd read about Vera Wang in a bridal magazine on the plane, an up-and-coming new designer whose dresses cost thousands of dollars. Juliet curls her toes inside her shoes.

"Right, of course, Gemma, I assume you'll want her and your sister to stand up with you. Then, let's see, for Monday, I found a minister, not Catholic - Father DePaul wishes you all the best, but he said he couldn't do it - but he recommended a nice minister who wants to meet with the two of you Monday morning, and I already did all the research on florists and found a good one, so they're expecting us at 12:30; then we can probably all meet for dinner before Jack has to fly back out."

That's the part she's been fearing: when Jack leaves to go back to work, and Juliet is on summer break now, and stuck out here for three extra days with her future in-laws (god, that's a weird thought), which means she'll get to make polite conversation and make sure David doesn't break anything or put his vegetables in the VCR.

She's already been trying to ignore Margo's pointed questions about why David isn't potty-trained yet. _(Because, oh, he's going to be in the hospital soon and there's no point in starting now when he'd probably end up regressing. Sorry, grandparents, didn't we mention that part? Whoops!)_

Juliet feels a little pale and sweaty even thinking about the days without Jack, but Margo just keeps on going about how she has a Polaroid camera so they can take pictures of whatever dress Juliet picks, because of _course_ she'll find something beautiful at Vera Wang, why even think about going anywhere else, and they can bring the Polaroids to the salon for preliminary hair and makeup experimentation on Tuesday afternoon, and then there's the guest list to think about, but they can start that tomorrow morning at breakfast, and invitations, those will need to be ordered in the next few days too, as soon as they have the venue straightened out, because really there's no time to lose, and blah blah blah fancy wedding, Fancy Wedding! Just like she thought she wanted etc., etc.

_Oh, god._

Next to her, Jack clears his throat. "Mom, this is all great, but we wanted to take some time to bring David to his first baseball game while we're here."

Margo looks more confused than annoyed. "I have this all planned out, Jack. I thought you were here to plan this out."

The waiter comes over to take their orders then, and Juliet wishes this part could last as long as possible. Why did they decide to do this again? Because Juliet wants a wedding, even though she didn't - doesn't - need anything remotely as fancy as Margo seems to think? Because she thinks David should have a relationship with his grandparents?

The waiter smooth-talks them all, takes their orders, leaves. Christian speaks first; Juliet isn't particularly surprised. "You can take him to a Tigers game in Detroit any time."

Jack's eyes slide over toward Juliet. "We kind of have a thing with the Dodgers. There's a game tomorrow afternoon, or we could go to the one Monday."

"But we have..." Margo begins.

Jack squares his shoulders. "Well, tell me what you want to reschedule and I'll make the calls myself."

Margo's eyes scan down the list. "The florist," she finally says.

Juliet feels a little bit like cheering for Jack; instead she bites down on the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.

* * *

She sleeps a little fitfully, worrying David will get out of bed, and in the middle of the night she opens her eyes - not from a dream, this time; those only seem to happen in Michigan. She cracks her eyes open in the dark of this tastefully appointed guest room. No, no dreams.

And it's not David who's out of bed, at least not that she can tell. Juliet slowly becomes aware of the empty space next to her.

She checks David's room first, but he's sound asleep, his arms thrown over his head. (Sometimes she still can't believe he's really hers.) Juliet picks up his stuffed dolphin, tucks it next to his knee.

Downstairs and out back, Jack is sitting with his feet in the pool, watching the shimmer of the underwater lights.

"You OK?" she asks from the patio, wrapping her arms around herself. It's cool and humid out here, the backyard greenery twitching in the breeze.

He tenses at first, she can see the muscles work under the fabric of his T-shirt. Then he relaxes, turns slightly. The pavement is cold under her bare feet, so she walks fast, sinking down next to him. The tiles at the edge of the pool aren't any warmer. She laces her fingers through Jack's, waits for him to speak first.

Jack takes a deep breath, holds it in for almost too long. Just as she starts to wonder exactly how long he can hold it, Jack bursts out, "What if they fuck up David?" He looks at her then, like she's supposed to know exactly what to say.

"We're here. They're not going to fuck up David."

"I don't mean - now. I mean. I mean, how much access are we giving them, here? How am I supposed to protect him from them? The last thing he needs is my father to be telling him he's not good enough."

_He's only two and a half years old,_ Juliet doesn't say. _He's as good at things right now as any other two and a half year old._ Not counting the fact that he can sometimes imitate the music on TV with his little plastic piano, but then, there have to be other kids who can do that, right?

"And then my mother - " he flings a hand behind him, toward the house - "encouraging every bad behavior possible."

In David? Or in Christian? "We don't have to do this," she says softly.

Jack shakes his head, rapidly. "It's just... seeing him in that room. In my old room."

She thinks about what she wants to say for a long time before she lets it out. Imagining a tiny Jack, lining up toy cars on the carpet, _kapow_-ing with plastic Army men, pressing old stamps into an album. "This may sound strange. But I think it's kind of nice."

His face twists. "Why?"

For some reason, she imagines sitting on a beach, watching a plume of smoke rising from the water. "Because... because it used to be yours. Because you can come back here. Everything just... evaporated for me. My whole family. I don't have anything like that, an old place to fall back on. My mom - " She stops._ Whatever you think it is you're going back to, it doesn't exist anymore. _

Because the truth is she never would have gone to UCLA if her mother wasn't going to die; when she was younger, she'd always planned on staying in Miami for college. But she'd _needed_ to escape. Needed to get away from all that death, needed to get away because there'd be nothing left for her in Miami, anyway. And if that hadn't happened? She'd never have met Jack.

Never would have had David.

She shivers.

Jack slips his arm around her, rubbing her arm, trying to warm her up and then rolling his eyes almost comically. She can see the glint of a tear from the reflection of the pool lights. With his other hand, he reaches over to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear. "You must think I'm the world's biggest crybaby."

She leans in close, rests her head on his shoulder. "Pretty much."

He chuckles, slightly. "I'm sorry you don't have anything to go back to."

Juliet feels better just touching him. "For what it's worth, I don't think you're overreacting. But they're his grandparents. He can see them more than once a year. We'll watch how they are with him."

"OK," he finally says, and she marvels, still, over the fact that Jack is just so willing to listen to her.

Juliet squeezes his hand. "Let's go to bed."

* * *

Upstairs she waits for Jack to close the door, and then she slides her arm behind him to lock it. His eyes widen; he looks surprised, but she reaches out, backing him against the door. Unbuttons his shirt.

She feels strong right now, maybe where he isn't, and they've flipped these roles before, maybe more than once, and they'll probably do it over and over, all these years ahead of them suddenly unfurling in front of her.

Her hands slide up, cupping his face, and he gives up on his hesitation, leaning down to kiss her. Their mouths fuse, and he feels so warm against her, their bodies pressing together, and she can feel the force of the grip he suddenly applies to her hips, his fingers tightening.

Forever is a long time (they're going to be together _forever)_, probably more than either of them can really comprehend right now, but maybe that's the point, it's all too much to take at once so they can just keep measuring it out, a little at a time, she'll be strong and then he will, and they'll trade off and they can do this, they can do it all.

Jack's hands move from her hips, sliding up underneath her shirt - it's his, actually, a faded Red Sox one. And he steps forward, invading her space in the best way possible, not like that dream where he'd bent her over the table in a metal room, no, no, here the wooden floor is clean and smooth under her bare feet, and he cups her breasts and she's clutching the back of his neck, grabbing onto his hair.

He takes another step forward again, and she steps back, repeating this over and over like a dance, almost, until they reach the bed and all she wants right now is this, them, the way he pushes her shorts down, the feel of him against her, his kisses swallowing her moans. And the two of them, here, now, just trying to be quiet in this room at the end of the hall and maybe hoping for too many things.

* * *

"Here we are, just a couple of rich orphans," Gemma announces dramatically, swilling her tea in the dressing area of Vera Wang.

"Someone's going to hear you and not know you're joking."

Gemma grins. Technically, she's not really joking. Technically.

Margo returns then, Juliet sitting up straighter, and then two salesgirls seem to explode into the small room in puffs of white (is wearing white just too ridiculous?), and Juliet is subjected to pushing and tugging and strangers adjusting her boobs in all kinds of embarrassing ways. Even better, of course, is that her future mother-in-law gets to see her in her underwear.

"I got stretchmarks, too, dear. At least you got your body back otherwise."

_Hey, salesgirl? Next time you bring us more tea, could you please also bring me a gun?_

Somewhere around the fourth dress, she starts to relax a little. Gemma keeps cracking jokes, and it keeps Juliet from being the center of attention too much, which is something she just can't handle. It makes her feel isolated. Alone. Which she somehow is, standing on this raised platform while the salesgirl clips one of those clothespin-like devices to the back of the dress.

The girl leaves to find more options - "Simpler," Juliet tries to stress - and Gemma leaves to go to the bathroom. Margo looks at her, smiles. "When Christian and I were dating, he took me to Paris," she begins. Like it's some kind of confession. "It would have been such a scandal in those days, if anyone had found out. In those days, you didn't live together before marriage. If a girl got pregnant, well... she went to go stay with an aunt, or in a home for unwed mothers, until the baby could be given up for adoption."

Juliet stands still in her big white dress, feeling like a hypocrite. She nods.

"Well, my sisters knew," Margo goes on. "I was living at home, working. Nadine was still in college, so we said I was going to visit her. Paris was... it was like a whole other world. I couldn't even believe this had been out here, the whole time, just waiting there. And one day I was out by myself - Christian had someone he had to see, some appointment, I don't remember - and I went shopping." She smiles again, looking almost bashful. "I saw a bridal shop, and I couldn't help myself, I went in. They asked me when I was getting married, and I was too embarrassed to say I wasn't, so I made up a date. But Christian proposed that night." Her eyes focus on nothing in particular, now.

Juliet wonders. Wonders if she regrets saying yes, regrets Christian, regrets Jack by extension.

"It was like..." Margo's voice sounds almost dreamy now.

"Like what?" Juliet asks softly.

Margo sees her then, again. "Like... like... I don't know," she says, her voice rising to its normal volume gradually. Then she straightens up, nods authoritatively, and slips back into the Margo that Juliet's always known. "Have you thought about shoes?"

She means to comment somehow on this, any of it, proposals or harmless lies or shoes, she doesn't know, but instead what comes out is, "We went to Paris. We loved it."

"Who's we?"

Shit. This isn't what Juliet meant to happen. "My mom took Rachel and me. For Rachel's high school graduation. She was going to take us somewhere else for mine. We hadn't decided where yet. But... she was sick, and we were going to move up the trip, but..." Then there was no money. Then there was no anything. She shrugs. Her smile is probably not as brave as she's like.

But Margo reaches over, squeezes her shoulder, nods at this little dressing area with too many mirrors, and lighting that's supposed to be flattering, but isn't. "I'm sorry you didn't get to go. And I'm sorry she's not here for this."

"Thanks," Juliet whispers, but that's not what she's thinking. What she's thinking is: _We DID take that trip. She DID help me try on wedding dresses._ Sometimes she wonders if she's the only person in the world to have weird thoughts like this. (She hopes she isn't.)

And then Gemma's back, and there are more dresses to try on. But when the salesgirl fastens the clips at the back of the next dress, Juliet's lungs constrict, and she's looking and looking at herself in the mirror.

_This is it, this is what I wore, this is - _but no, no, NO, who WAS he, that wasn't Jack, that was - that was all a big mistake, a big big big mistake, how could she have - _but this is the dress, only I already wore it once - _and her mother, HER mother not Jack's mother, no, HER mother helped her pick it out, and her mother was fine, HER MOTHER WAS FINE AND THEY WENT TO VENICE and _this is the dress, I wore this and Dad walked me down the aisle and everyone was trying to act like everything was wonderful even though they all hated E-_

"Juliet?" Margo interrupts her. "This is beautiful. Just beautiful. What do you think of this one?"

She's thinking crazy thoughts, things that don't make any sense, things that aren't real.

The edges of her vision are dark, and she blinks several times until she can see herself again, pale and jittery in the mirror, anything but beautiful. But real. This is real, here, now, not whatever else is going on in her mind.

"The dress?" Margo prompts.

"Not this one," Juliet barely whispers.

* * *

**Thank you so much to everyone who's been leaving reviews! They are making me so, so happy!**


	57. One of Us

_When I look in the mirror_  
_I see my days to come_  
_and my face is just a trace_  
_of where I'm coming from._

- Ani DiFranco, Circle of Light

* * *

As she's filling out the order forms for her dress, she actually starts to get excited. As in, real, sappy, giddy excitement. She ducks her head, letting her hair fall around her face to hide her spreading smile. No, she hadn't chosen the dress Margo had pushed so hard for - there just was something... off... about that one.

And really. Bad vibes about a brand-new dress? She's not superstitious, doesn't believe all that stuff about auras and vibes and whatever other Ouija board nonsense Rachel buys into. But on the other hand... no, just no.

She'd been about ready to tell Margo and Gemma to pick for her (any one but that one) when they'd clipped her into a strapless ivory gown with a full gauzy skirt, a bodice made from crossed and twisted fabric. She'd narrowed her eyes at her reflection, because honestly, the dress just seemed... a little much. But also, just perfect.

So Juliet immediately tried to deflect. "I look like a cupcake."

"You look like a goddamn princess, and you know it," Gemma had retorted. Margo started laughing under her breath.

"I don't know..."

"Let me put it this way," Gemma tried again. "Looking at you right now, no one would ever guess what a terrible personality you have."

At that, she actually kind of... snorted? How ladylike.

Gemma had smirked. "That's more like it."

"I think this is the one," Margo announced, digging through her bag and pulling out her Polaroid.

"I know," Juliet had admitted shyly.

Now, as they leave the store, Juliet notices the salesgirls hanging up the dresses she'd tried on. There's that other one, the one that made her think weird things, things about someone she doesn't even know. Wouldn't even want to know. But it doesn't matter, her wedding dress will be delivered to her in Ann Arbor in a few weeks, and she's marrying Jack, not... not...well, whatever, whoever, tried to invade her brain. She's getting excited now, and that's that.

Time to focus on the present. On what's real.

* * *

That sappy, giddy excitement stays with her for the next two days. Sunday night, Juliet convinces Jack that David will be all right through one night with his grandparents as babysitters - especially since he's already asleep when they go out.

The bar is packed, and they're out with Gemma and Laura (always complicated since they don't actually get along) and Jack's childhood buddy, Marc Silverman, who as he puts it, is "now playing the part of the best man."

This Silverman guy she's only met a handful of times, but at least he's a good buffer between Gemma and Laura, and the beer is flowing and they're only a couple (OK, maybe four or five) pitchers in before Jack is singing along with that Proclaimers song that's been playing nonstop on the radio for weeks now: "When I WAKE UP! Yeah I know _I'm gonna be!_ I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you," and Juliet can. Not. Stop. Laughing.

"This song is _horrible!"_ but Gemma is screaming with laughter too.

In conclusion: They are all fucking smashed. It's lovely.

Marc's sloshing the contents of the pitcher into everyone's pint glasses, not actually bothering to lift the spout of the pitcher between glasses, showering the table with beer too - _When I GO OOT! Yeah I know I'm gonna be! I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you!_ - and Juliet and Gemma clink their glasses together a little too hard, although they don't break, Laura kind of rolling her eyes because she's exactly the kind of nerd that Juliet used to be ('not a nice thought! not a nice thought!' rings through her inebriated brain).

"IF I GET DRUNK!" - Jack and Marc are practically yelling now, although they're blending in decently with the din of the bar and the rushing in Juliet's ears - ("If?" Gemma snorts) - "IF I GET DRUNK! YES I KNOW I'M GONNA BE! I'M GONNA BE THE MAN WHO GETS DRUNK NEXT TO YOU!"

That is both fun, and also a possible prediction of their life together whenever they have a babysitter. When they get to the part about havering - _And IF I HAVER! Yeah I know I'm gonna be! I'm gonna be the man who's havering to you!_ - and Juliet realizes 1., she has no clue what the hell havering is, and 2., she really, really needs to pee.

Jack lays a big kiss on her as she gets up, something they'd probably never do in front of other people if they weren't this drunk, and sure, he's probably advertising his possession of her to the rest of the bar. He tastes like beer but also he tastes very, very good, and eventually (eventually) she pries herself away.

_Mmm_. Maybe they can get out of here soon.

"Juliet, I think you left your tongue over here!" she hears Gemma yell as she leaves their table.

She's been to this bar before, admittedly not in about two? three? years, and she finally escapes the clouds of smoke, wandering through the winding back hallway, painted blood-red and slathered in Sharpie graffiti, when she comes around a corner and smacks right into a couple slobbering over each other, next to a cigarette machine. She's a little unsteady on her feet, and the fact that the floor has apparently been taken over by a rolling ocean doesn't help.

The couple detaches, both of them clearly annoyed by the interruption. The girl - the one she'd actually bumped into - is Latina, long dark hair and pretty eyes and she looks more or less like she's ready to punch Juliet if she doesn't get a move on soon.

She turns to the guy, hoping for intervention. "I was just looking for - "

But his eyes widen, and he hastily wipes his mouth before his jaw drops, and Juliet's hand flies up to grip the wall. He's scruffy-looking, that's for sure, something that probably doesn't match the dorky-looking glasses on the edge of his nose. He reaches up, takes them off. The walls of this dark, low-ceilinged hallway seem to close in. "You?" he asks quietly.

_Me?_

His girlfriend(?) makes an indignant noise now. "You two know each other?" she asks skeptically.

_Do we?_

"We..." he trails off, looking dumbfounded, and then Juliet remembers. This nagging, haunted feeling had to come from somewhere, right? Her skin prickles, her forehead throbs. Actually, suddenly everything hurts, her legs, her spine, her neck. Her ribs burn, and she can almost feel something rough and wet and heavy in her right hand. Metal creaks slowly overhead; is that coming from the ceiling? But then she knows she was just imagining it, and she is drunk, so drunk, drunker than she's been since before David... or, no, she got impossibly drunk that one Christmas in Flagstaff, but that wasn't fun, and this IS, or it was until a few seconds again, and standing in front of her is... the guy from the bookstore?

"Uhhh..." the girlfriend prompts, both eyebrows shooting upward. "Listen, if you got somethin' to tell me, you better spit it out already."

He seems to get his bearings back, more or less. Or at least, he remembers how to close his mouth. "Just a bookstore customer." He winks impishly at Juliet, flashing a dimple, and his eyes move along the suddenly-too-low neckline of her shirt.

_Uh, EXCUSE me? I'm 'just a bookstore customer.' That doesn't mean you get to check me out._

But then his gaze is back to normal so fast she thinks she must be imagining it, especially once he slips an arm around the girlfriend's back.

_(You still got my back?)_

All of a sudden Jack's right behind her. "Thought I lost you," he murmurs into her ear, pressing against her, and she shakes her head. The guys eye each other warily. She feels Jack straighten up to his full height. His fingers dig into her hips from behind; it's sexy and possessive and absurd all at once.

"Gemma's making out with Marc. Think we should get going," Jack tells her quietly, his breath warm against her skin.

Annoyed Latina Girlfriend moves her eyes over Jack's face, looking... puzzled?

"I was just looking for the bathroom," Juliet finally says to the other couple.

Bookstore Manager makes a fist, aims the thumb over his shoulder. "Down that way. Keep goin'."

* * *

At the Dodgers game Monday afternoon, Jack buys David a tiny T-shirt, changes him into it right at their seats. David thinks this is the funniest thing ever.

"You better watch it," Juliet says.

"Huh?" Jack is folding up David's other shirt, tucking it into the diaper bag.

"If you're not careful, he's going to end up a Dodgers fan instead of a Red Sox one."

He shakes his head confidently. "The Dodgers are his _NL_ team. The Red Sox are his _AL_ team. And the greatest team in history, so they're obviously going to be his favorite."

"Right, of course."

"I'm just trying to make sure he has an appreciation for his birthplace." Jack pauses. "Hey, you know, Miami got a team this year."

"Yeah, I know." She shrugs, picks up David to thwart his attempt to climb the seats.

"I'm just saying, if you ever want - "

"I don't. Maybe someday we could go to Boston, though."

Jack raises his eyebrows, pleased at the thought. Someday they'll have actual money.

The game is starting, and they watch the players being announced. David thinks the singing of the National Anthem is intriguing, swaying along to the music, and Juliet shows him how to place his hand over his heart. He's interested in the game for maybe all of five minutes though, and then he's trying to climb over the backs of the empty seats in front of them.

"Maybe we should take a walk?" Juliet suggests. The bright light in this stadium isn't working wonders for her hangover, to be perfectly honest.

Inside, David wants a spool of cotton candy - only he'll be bouncing off the sides of the stadium if they get it for him, and for whatever reason, his next choice is a corndog. Juliet starts giggling when Jack hands it to him.

"What's so funny?"

"I don't know," she admits. "I've just never eaten one, they seem so... hilariously old-fashioned."

Jack stares at her in disbelief, then glances back at the concessions cashier, ordering two more corn dogs and drinks. They settle back down at their seats. "So, the corndog thing," Jack begins. "I know this is David's first Major League Baseball game. Please don't tell me it's yours too."

"Second," Juliet admits.

He pretends to sigh in relief. "Good to know. Unless... no Yankees games, right?"

She shakes her head. "Dodgers. Freshman year." She takes a bite of the damned corndog. Doctors (or, a doctor and a doctor-to-be), eating fried processed meat on a stick: This could make for a terrible cartoon. Or a "don't" on a public service ad.

"Good?" he asks.

"I'm honestly not sure." She takes another bite. "Kind of awful and wonderful at the same time." Like a lot of things.

"Exactly." He eats half of his in one bite. "You know, I don't think I could have married you if the only game you'd ever been to was a Yankees one, so I'm glad we cleared that up."

She grins, and they settle down to watch the game for awhile. David gets excited whenever anyone hits the ball, on either team - even foul balls, so he ends up relatively entertained, at least for now. Juliet's mind kind of drifts off for awhile. This trip's been fun, mostly, and Jack's parents have been fine. Margo had even dealt with David early this morning, telling her to sleep in.

"Jack?" she asks during a lull in the game. Already about to break the promise she'd made to herself, to focus on what's actually real.

"Mmm?"

"Do you ever have... have you ever thought you knew someone, or thought that maybe something happened, that hasn't?"

He turns to her slowly, like he's trying to buy time. "I don't, um..." A long, deep, slow exhale, and he runs his hand over the top of his head. "I don't think I know what you mean."

"Never mind," she answers quickly, her mouth going dry. Juliet turns back to the game, sipping on her soda.

A long time goes by. OK, maybe a minute or two, but it feels like years. "Sometimes," he says suddenly, and although neither one of them turns toward the other right away, relief floods through her.

"You have?" The hope in her voice is impossible to hide. She's not crazy. She's living a totally normal life.

"Well... yeah, I mean... doesn't everyone? There's a lot we still don't know about the brain."

She plays with the straw in her soda, poking it at the ice, shifting it around. Is that what it is? Some unit they haven't gotten to in med school yet?

"Iowa," he says suddenly.

"What?"

"A few years ago - before I met you - my mom and I went to go visit her side of the family in Chicago. You've met them."

Juliet nods.

"Anyway, we were there for a couple weeks, and one weekend we drove out to Iowa to see, God, I can't remember, my mom's cousins, I think. We're sitting there in this restaurant one morning, and there's a couple of kids out on the curb. It must have been Monday by then, because they were waiting for the school bus. And there's this girl, I don't know, just kind of staring at her lunch bag. One of those brown paper bags, you know what I mean?"

She nods again. What does this have to do with anything?

"And it was just... I don't know, it was like I knew what she was thinking. That she really wanted a lunchbox but instead she had this throwaway paper bag." He shakes his head, dismissing the thought. "Like that kind of thing?"

She twists up her face, thinking. What was that line from Prufrock? That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all. "I guess so."

Jack nods, obviously feeling more self-assured than she is. "There's a lot we still don't know about the brain," he repeats.

* * *

There is no way she can ask him to stay here in L.A. No way at all. That, however, doesn't keep her from having several conversation in her mind about how he really shouldn't leave her and David here. With. His. _Parents!_

She drives him to LAX in his mother's car, but at the curb she hangs onto their hug as long as possible, the side of her face pressed into his chest.

"Scared?" he asks.

"What gave it away?"

"I can barely breathe."

She loosens her grip, pulling away, and she can feel exactly how big her eyes are right now. Wasn't she supposed to be the reassuring one in this situation?

"I'd say you should just hop on the plane with me, but David's not here."

"We really do still have things to take care of," Juliet concedes. Florist, photographer, seating arrangements. This is what they wanted, right? Right, right, right. At some point this week, though, she's going to borrow Margo's car again and drive down with David to see Rose, Tahlia and Bernard.

"My mom's in her element right now. I don't think she's going to give you much of a hard time this week. And my dad's been in a good mood about his trip, so..." Christian's leaving L.A. himself at the end of the week. Some kind of work-related trip to Australia.

"I think that's the first good thing I've heard you say about your parents... pretty much ever."

He cracks a grin. "Had to happen sometime." He hefts his bag out of the trunk, slams it closed.

"Have a good flight," she offers.

"I hate flying." Jack's such a nervous flyer; it drives her crazy. Probably better they're flying back separately.

"I know. It'll be OK. Have a drink on the plane."

He ducks his head to her; their lips meet.

"Love you," he says against her mouth.

"Love you, too."

* * *

Juliet lets herself back into the house with Margo's key, but the downstairs is quiet, and a vague sense of unease starts to spread through her as her footsteps echo through room after room after room. Her heart rate revs up. "Hello?" she calls up the stairs, and... nothing.

She's about to check the garage for Christian's car when she hears something from outside.

They're all in the backyard, David squealing as he runs barefoot through a sprinkler. Christian's chasing him with an armful of Nerf balls, occasionally ducking low and throwing them at David's back, and each time one makes contact, David bursts into giggles again, darting around and around. His grandparents have expressions on their faces of... what? Pure joy, she thinks, as she stands there watching the scene unfold in front of her.

Margo sees her and waves. Christian risks a smile and throws a Nerf ball toward her.

She reaches up with one hand, plucks it from the air.

_That makes you one of us_, she thinks someone once told her, or maybe not.


	58. Tomorrow

**Hat tip to makealist for suggesting the vows thing! Oh, Jack, never change. OK, change a little.**

**Also, this chapter was SUPPOSED to be longer, but I spilled coffee on my laptop like an hour ago, and according to the universe I'm supposed to let it dry out for 2-3 days. ARGH! So I decided to put up what I have now, via iPad! to cheer myself up. (And yes, all my other work was backed up, so it is safe no matter what ends up happening with my poor computer.) I just couldn't bare to keep typing on the iPad becaues it is super annoying.**

* * *

_We get this crazy combination_  
_of everything and nothing right._

- Ani DiFranco, "Way Tight"

* * *

On her first night back in Michigan, they're lying in a tangle of limbs, sweaty, tired, happy (and seriously, wedding planning has been the most unexpected aphrodisiac _ever)._ Jack's playing with the ends of her hair, and she's half-lying on top of him, using his body as a pillow. "So I have an idea," he says.

Juliet props her chin up on his chest. "Does it involve us sleeping 'til noon tomorrow? Because I would really, really like that." Never gonna happen, but it's nice to have dreams.

He grins. "It does not. But what would you think of us writing our own vows?"

What, like 'my heart beats faster when you're near' and 'my skin warms at your touch' and all that vomit-inducing romance novel crap? She stares at him. "...Have you been reading my bridal magazines?"

Jack laughs now, a full, hearty laugh she can feel coming out of him, and she presses a kiss to his bare chest._ "...Maybe,"_ he relents. "I don't know why, but I just had a feeling that... it's something we should do."

Jack 'just had a feeling'? No, Jack _doesn't_ 'just have a feeling.' Jack goes ahead and does things. "I'm not sure I'm much of a writer," she hedges. Because the thought of all those people staring at her all through the ceremony - all through the _day_, even - already has her on edge. She doesn't like being the center of attention, and she admits to herself that wanting to have a wedding, and all it entails, is a completely conflicting desire.

He shakes his head against the pillow, drawing his finger down her nose to the tip, moving it over her lips. "With all the reading you do, you're not the one we should be worried about. But... let's just try it, all right?"

"All right." She yawns, closes her eyes and snuggles up against him as Jack pulls her closer.

* * *

They're all set up for the third Sunday in August, at an elegant hotel in Orange County. Jack manages to take (gasp!) an entire week off work, so they have a few days for last-minute preparations in L.A., followed by a blip of a two-day honeymoon outside San Diego.

Christian picks the three of them up at the airport, laden down with suitcases, car seat, garment bags - and in the entryway of the house, Margo is rushing around a stack of boxes. "Can you believe they delivered all these here instead of the hotel?" she says by way of greeting, exasperated.

"Nice to see you too, Mom," Jack retorts, and Margo momentarily calms down, pausing to greet them all, especially David. As soon as she puts him down, though, he's trying to climb up on the boxes.

"We're here early to help," Juliet reminds Margo, who's already opening the top one. She hands them a stack of white cocktail napkins, stamped in silver with _Juliet & Jack, 8/15/93._

Jack stares at the top napkin for a minute, looking... a little dumbfounded? Well, sure, it's not like they needed fancy silver-stamped cocktail napkins, or... or, whatever the hell else is in all these boxes. "We can get this stuff down there first thing tomorrow," Juliet promises Margo.

It's not like she's exactly planning on sleeping between now and the wedding, anyway, continually imagining all those people looking at her recite her vows. She'd finally written them, on the plane while Jack read to David, but as far as she knows, Jack has yet to write a single word. Maybe she still has time to talk him out of this idea.

Four days to go.

* * *

On the way back from dropping off the trunkload of crap at the hotel, Jack insists they stop off for lunch in Newport Beach. Sitting on the back deck of the restaurant, a fresh breeze coming off the ocean, she realizes exactly how much she's missed the water. _And_ it's a meal where she doesn't have to cut up anyone else's food. "This is nice," she sighs.

"Could be the last break we get for the next few days."

That's probably good enough reason to order wine with lunch, but as they touch glasses, Juliet gets prickles on the back of her neck, like someone is watching her. Her lips at the rim of her wine glasses, she surveys the seating area, and sure enough, there's a young woman watching her, one who gives her a sudden flash of a smile as she begins making her way over.

It takes Juliet a moment to realize it's Sarah, her freshman year roommate. They'd been assigned to each other by the school, and it's not that they hadn't gotten along, per se, but they also had very little in common. And Sarah could, at times, get downright bitchy. Juliet was happy to sign up to live with Penny the following year, a far more suitable roommate, and she doesn't think she'd seen Sarah since.

She's in front of the table now. "Juliet?" she asks with a smile. "I thought that was you!"

"Hi, Sarah." Juliet puts down her wine glass, musters up a smile in return. "Wow, it's nice to see you!" After all, it _was_ nice of Sarah to even bother coming over. She half-rises in her seat, and Sarah gives her one of those quick hugs you give to people you're pretending to be really jazzed to see again after a long time.

They sort of stand there for a moment. Jack stands too, suddenly, reaches over to shake Sarah's hand. "Jack Shephard," he says. "I'm Juliet's fiance."

Sarah's eyes practically bulge out of their sockets.

_ What, was I THAT lonely and nerdy?_ Juliet thinks. But then, the way they keep staring at each other starts to make her a little uneasy. Had Jack _dated_ her? (Fucked her?) She knows he's seen a lot of girls, but -

"Nice to meet you," Sarah finally says. She drags her eyes back to Juliet. "I heard you had a baby?"

"Um, yeah," she replies, somehow finding her voice. "Not so much of a baby anymore. He's two and a half."

Sarah looks baffled. "Wow. Um, congrats. Yeah, I heard..." She shakes her head. "Just can't imagine it. I don't think you even had one single date freshman year. Until the end, when... Oh!" She looks back toward Jack. "I think I remember you now. Or, at least, the existence of you."

Juliet asks a few polite questions about Sarah's life. She's teaching elementary school, getting her Masters in education in the evenings, living in Long Beach, where the cost of living is apparently astronomical. Juliet wonders if Sarah's still dating that shithead. What was his name - Keith? Kevin? - but she doesn't ask about Sarah's love life, and Sarah doesn't volunteer.

_Can this conversation please end soon?_

"Where are you guys living these days?" Sarah asks.

"Ann Arbor," Jack volunteers, still looking a little too intently at Sarah.

"In... Michigan?"

"In Michigan."

"Huh. Really." She appears quite unimpressed.

_Yes, yes, I know it's incredibly lame and boring and unglamorous? _And yeah, Sarah may complain about the cost of living, but that's an awfully nice-looking handbag she has there. But Sarah doesn't have to pay for daycare.

"Juliet got a full scholarship to med school there," Jack tells Sarah, like life is suddenly somehow a competition. He smiles over at Juliet, one of those beaming smiles.

"Wow," she replies, sounding dutifully impressed. "So what brings you guys back here?"

"We're getting married on Sunday, in... in... in Mission Viejo." Jack looks, what? Perplexed suddenly?

"You're getting married in Mission Viejo?" Sarah repeats. She frowns into the sun. Jack is still staring at her. What the hell is going on? They've clearly never met before... right? Then suddenly, their waiter is right behind Sarah, bearing their food, and Sarah smiles and waves and wishes them the best on Sunday, and they don't exchange phone numbers or otherwise pretend like they ever even want to see each other again.

(Three days to go.)

* * *

Rachel looks pale and tired and unarguably happy. She and Niall are staying at Akihiko's place - "You remember him, don't you? Akihiko Dogen?" - and oh yeah, Juliet _does_ remember him. He'd moved to L.A. with his girlfriend, and they'd had a baby boy too, not long after David was born.

Against Margo's not-so-secret wishes, Rachel and Niall will be taking care of David, at the Dogens', while Jack and Juliet are on their 'honeymoon.' On a brief afternoon visit to get acquainted, Juliet asks Akihiko's girlfriend? wife? (she peeks at her hand - wife) about a million times if she minds, but Miyoshi just points to the boys tumbling in the living room and tells her they'll entertain each other.

"I can't imagine your in-laws are happy they're not getting him."

"Well, if you _did_ choose to imagine, you'd be imagining correctly."

* * *

That night, Rachel drags Juliet out to a bar. Jack's spending the evening at his parents', in theory to look after David, but mainly, Juliet thinks, because he still hasn't written his vows.

Inside the bar, her eyes haven't quite adjusted to the darkness before Gemma and Laura throw a couple of handfuls of confetti on her. "Welcome to the lamest bachelorette party ever," Gemma informs her, but the truth is, a small crowd? In a dark bar? Yep, this seems pretty much perfect.

They all give her wrapped boxes of humiliatingly trashy lingerie, and Juliet's pretty sure she would end up stranded on a deserted island before ever wearing this stuff.

"Do you see how red she is?" Rachel asks the other two.

"Aww, Mrs. Shephard's gonna be such a prude," Gemma sighs.

"Nope," Juliet announces.

"So you _will_ wear this stuff?" Gemma asks skeptically.

"No, I meant, I'm not gonna be Mrs. Shephard, or another Dr. Shephard, or whatever. I'm sticking with Carlson."

Rachel grins. "Good for you."

Juliet shrugs. The truth is, it would make perfect sense to change her last name - they'd changed David's six months ago, and it's not like Carlson was the name she'd been born with, anyway. And career-wise, it wouldn't hurt anything, considering, well, considering she currently _has_ no career. But every time she'd considered it, there was just this nagging feeling she couldn't kick.

She remembers they day they'd signed the paperwork at the courthouse for David. Jack had been in such a good mood all day. He kept reaching over, fiddling with her engagement ring, giving her little smiles, too-long gazes. David had actually gone to sleep early that night, and Jack found her in the kitchen, washing dishes. "You know what I was thinking?" he asked from the doorway.

Juliet had paused, turned off the water. Shook her head.

"David's initials. Before, they were D, R, C. Like Dr. C, Dr. Carlson. Now they're D, R, S."

"What, as in Dr. Shepard?" she had asked wryly, trying out her best grumpy look. God, he was really thinking over every single angle of this. So damn proud. His Very Own Family(TM).

"I was thinking as in, _doctors_." He stepped across the room until he was right in front of her, taking the soapy sponge from her hand and dropping it onto the counter. He stepped even closer, invading her space in the best way possible.

She raised an eyebrow, maybe a little flirtatiously. "Doctor," she purred in greeting.

Jack must have liked that, because he hooked his index fingers into the belt loops of her jeans, using them to pull himself closer and closer, while pressing her against the counter. "Doctor," he said, lowering his lips to kiss her neck.

_Oh, if only._ "Not quite yet." But somehow that didn't quite matter right at that moment, her eyes rolling back in her head as his lips nibbled on her skin, and she grabbed onto the back of his neck as he raised his head again to kiss her lips.

"Soon enough." More kissing. Goddamn, was she _ever_ happy David fell asleep so early. Jack's hands were at her hips, moving upward, cupping her breasts under her shirt, and then the shirt was discarded and she was working at his belt.

"Three more years," it was suddenly important to remind him, despite how good he smells and the jangling of his belt buckle as she pulled it out of the loops and dropped it on the floor. _Three years, two months and 28 days. Not that I'm counting or anything._

But his hands were fiddling with the back clasp of her bra, and she was having an increasingly difficult time keeping her thoughts together, and why should she even have wanted to?

He finally got her bra undone, and a little thrill ran through her. "Three years will go by faster than you know it," he told her, and then she was working at his shirt, too.

Now, at the bar, Gemma drawls in full Texan bravado, "We-ellll, _Mizzzzzzz_ Carlson, if you're never going to use these lovely gifts, I think we have a right to inform your poor future husband exactly what he'll be missing out on."

Rachel, playing along, digs into her pocket and slaps a quarter onto the table. "Your choice, Julie."

Juliet pauses, remembering exactly how Jack haad lifted her onto the counter that time. "Well... Maybe just, you know, once in a while."

Rachel and Gemma high-five over her head. "Slut," Rachel says happily.

(Two days to go.)

* * *

The night before the wedding, Juliet double-checks on David, safely ensconced in Margo and Christian's hotel room. But it's Jack she can't find, and the whole time she's getting ready for bed, she keeps waiting for him to walk in.

He doesn't.

She wonders about that trashy lingerie, but hell, she's alone, so she doesn't put on anything special and just slides into bed, turns out the lights, but fifteen minutes pass, then twenty. Finally she finds her sandals, wanders through the ground floor of the hotel in her pajamas like a sleepy homeless person.

In the lobby bar, Gemma and Rachel are perched on bar stools, umbrella drinks in front of them. Rachel nods her head to the piano in the corner, winking, and Juliet belatedly realizes Jack's hunkered down behind it, a glass of something clear and brown on a napkin on top... of a notepad with about half the pages ripped oUt.

He doesn't look up until she slides onto the bench next to him. He's still wearing his suit from the rehearsal dinner, the tie loosened. She probably should have put on something better than sweatpants and Jack's old Red Sox T-shirt. But hey, at least she's not wearing the trashy lingerie.

"I think those girls are checking you out," she teases him.

Jack slides an arm around her, his fingers slipping under the edge of her T-shirt, grazing the skin just above her waistband. "You're in your PJs."

"Indeed I am."

Jack sneaks a look over at Gemma and Rachel, then looks back at Juliet, trying to pretend he wasn't looking. "Are they cute?"

Juliet plays innocent. "Is what cute? My PJs?"

"The girls who are checking me out."

"Mmm, they kind of are." They laugh. Juliet touches her index finger to one of the keys; she has no idea whether it's a C or an F or whatever. "So do you actually still remember anything from your lessons?"

"A little. I bet I could I could have you playing 'Heart and Soul' before the night is out."

She stares at him doubtfully.

"You take the easy part." He takes her hand in his, touches her finger to a key. "This is middle C. You want to start at the F to the right of it. C, D, E, F." He touches her finger to each of the keys in sequence. "So you play F, F, F, and then you pause, F again, E, D and then it starts over one more time."

She tries. It _does_ sound like the beginning of "Heart and Soul." Huh. She glances at the mangled notepad. "You know you really don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"Teach you 'Heart and Soul'?"

"Yeah, that... or writing your vows."

"How do you know I haven't?"

This time Juliet deliberately lets her eyes slide over to the pad of paper. "You haven't." She starts playing over the notes he'd told her. F, F, F... E, D, F, F, F... this is a freakishly cheery-sounding song.

"I want to." Jack's lips puff out, a good imitation of David's pouting face. Or, Juliet realizes, that's actually _exactly_ where David got it from. "I'm going to."

"Do you want to teach me the rest of this song?"

"Will you remember it in the morning?"

"Hey, _I'm_ not the one who's been drinking."

He smiles ruefully, a close-lipped smile. "Maybe I should get back to working on them."

She reaches over, squeezes his knee, looking at him in this yellowy-brown light of the bar. What's she supposed to say to him, exactly? Why can't he stop worrying and just _write_ something?_ Any_thing. This whole thing was his idea.

And yeah, the 'let's write our own vows' thing, Juliet can take or leave. But as she looks at the stubble in his face, the stubborn set of his jaw, his long fingers curled at the edge of the piano, she realizes just how damn glad she is that he thought of the whole 'let's get married' thing in the first place. "It doesn's really matter, you know. What matters is that I cannot _wait_ to marry you."

Jack's face flushes with happiness, and she realizes this was exactly what he needed to hear.

(Tomorrow.)


	59. The Swimming Man

**W****elcome to a wedding full of jears.**

* * *

_And she's learning the spaces she leaves_  
_have their own things to say_  
_and she's trying to sing just enough so that the air around her moves_  
_and make music like mercy that gives what it is_  
_and has nothing to prove._

_She crawls out on a limb and begins to build her home_  
_and it's enough just to look around and to know that she's not alone._

- Ani Difranco, "Up Up Up Up Up Up"

* * *

When she opens her eyes in the morning, he's watching her, his knees pressed up against hers under the covers, and they're sharing the same pillow. Somewhere in the back of her brain, there's a mechanism telling her she should be teasing him; instead, a sleepy smile spreads across her face.

Under the covers, the fingertips of her right hand find the fingertips of his left.

"Jack and Juliet," he whispers to her in a slightly comical voice, and she realizes he's quoting from those silly cocktail napkins.

The fingertips of his right hand find the fingertips of her left.

"8/15/93," she whispers back.

(Today.)

* * *

An eerie calm has settled over her by the time Rachel's getting her into her gown.

Granted, this eerie calm only remains in effect as long as she doesn't look at herself in the mirror, she's noticed; at the salon her heart had been racing a mile a minute. "I don't even look like myself," she'd said to her reflection.

"It's called makeup," Rachel told her. "I know it's an unknown concept, but really, it'll be OK. We're gonna get through this together."

That wasn't exactly what she'd meant though, not exactly.

Now, however, she's facing away from the mirror in their spacious hotel bathroom, Rachel cursing under her breath at the long row of tiny buttons, the button hook, and Juliet's already mentally bracing herself for the walk through the hotel corridors, and then down in the elevator, and more corridors, everyone looking at her and - she takes a ragged breath in - and then _more_ people looking at her and she has to recite her vows, (so embarrassing) -

A knock comes from the suite door.

"What the fuck?" Rachel mutters, annoyed, and angles around Juliet back into the main room. "Who is it?" she asks, louder.

"Jack."

"Go away."

"I need to talk to Juliet."

"It's bad luck," Rachel calls through the door, teasing, but Juliet can hear how strained his voice sounds, and she leaves the bathroom, elbows around her sister.

"We already woke up together today," Juliet tells her.

"And I told you that was bad luck, too," her sister retorts.

"So if we get a divorce, we won't blame it on you."

Rachel glares at her momentarily. "Five minutes." She raises her voice. "And Jack needs to keep his back turned!"

"Rachel, seri-" She's cut off by Rachel angling herself in front, cracking the door.

_"I'm_ serious, turn around," her sister orders Jack.

Jack, Juliet's noticed, only listens to two people. Juliet kind of had to earn her commanding ability; the fact that he obeys Rachel continues to blow her mind, and sure enough, Jack steps backward into the room.

Rachel stands there for a second like a hungry watchdog. "OK. No funny business."

_Funny business is exactly why we've ended up here,_ Juliet thinks. Well, not exactly. Not at all, even. Actually kind of a long road from there to here. Huh.

Rachel leaves with a warning that she'll be in the hall.

"Do you think she can hear us?" Jack asks nervously, his back still turned.

"I have no idea."

"Think I can turn around?"

(Is it wrong to want to play along with Rachel's rules?) "Can I help you?" Juliet asks in her best grocery store cashier/diner waitress/bakery lackey/library slave voice.

"Juliet," he sighs heavily. "I can't do this."

_You can't_ - her breath freezes in her lungs. "You can't - what?" she gasps._ Oh no, oh my god, no no no -_

Jack turns around then, holds up a fistful of papers. "I can't write these vows."

The half-formed tears in her eyes pause. "You - you can't write your - " All of a sudden she's laughing, stepping forward, grabbing the papers and pummeling him with them. "You scared me! You asshole!" Nice touch, calling him an asshole on their wedding day, too.

He starts laughing too. "I didn't mean -"

"Well, I know that _now_, you jerk!" She's still laughing, but he's stopped, just staring at her. "What?"

He lets out a heavy breath. "You're beautiful."

She closes her eyes in pleasure, remembering the very first time he'd ever told her that. Remembering the way she'd said, _no_. She opens her eyes and smiles. Reaches out to touch his face. "Thank you," she says now, simply.

He wraps his arms around her waist. "Do you mind? About the vows?"

"Not one bit."

* * *

Yep. So easy. _Repeat after me._ And they do. They don't get too terribly teary, they don't have to talk about complicated pasts or awkward histories or embarrassing emotions in front of an audience, just repeat after the minister, ring, ring, _I now pronounce you husband and wife._

And they're married.

The reception is ten thousand times better. She fades into the crowd - OK, as much as one can when it's your own wedding and you're wearing a white dress the size of California - but there's champagne and tiny appetizers and dinner, and she and Jack ignore all the fast songs and she'd told Margo long ago, no Formal Announcement of Dr. and Mrs. Shephard, she's not even going to _be_ a Shephard, and no official first dance that everyone has to stand around and watch, and lo and behold, Margo had actually listened. Delightful.

Not long before dinner, Christian gets up to make a toast, about how the first Christmas Jack had brought Juliet to the house, they just _knew_ she was the one for him. And, bonus! Nary a mention of the fact that she was about eight months pregnant at the time. And he sounds so sincere, Juliet's almost willing to believe this bullshit story.

Jack is beaming at her all through the toast, although somewhere in the back of her head, she wonders if the beaming has more to do with this being their wedding day, or the fact that his father seemingly approves. Jack had shown her the watch his father had given to him the day before, something that had been handed down in his family for several generations.

Now, Christian raises his glass of champagne (_wait! champagne!_ and alarm bells ring out in her head), and Ray raises his, and Margo, and Rachel and Niall and her dad and Stephanie, and all of Jack's extended family in from Chicago, and everyone else, and this means Jack and Juliet have to kiss before everyone can drink.

Only then they're kissing, as much as they can in front of an audience, or maybe even too much now - and she doesn't see whether Christian drinks the champagne.

* * *

Juliet is taking a breather, in the front vestibule with David, who's basically more interested in tossing pennies into the fountain than the entire fancy reception going on one room over and spilling out to the veranda. (Is veranda really the right word? It just seems like more than a balcony.)

She looks up suddenly and Christian is standing there.

"Oh, hi."

"Hi," he smiles at them. "Was wondering where you two had gone off to."

Juliet points kind of lamely at David, who's clamoring at her for more pennies. "I don't have any more, baby." It's kind of hard to explain to a two-and-a-half-year-old that wedding dresses don't usually come equipped with pockets.

"Here, buddy." Christian fishes into his pocket and gives David a handful of change.

He's already dashing off when Juliet calls to him, "Say thank you!"

"Tank yooooo!" And he's back up on the ledge of the fountain.

"Takes so little to make them happy, doesn't it?" Christian says.

In all honesty, sometimes it feels like it takes a hell of a _lot_ to keep him 'happy,' but Juliet knows Christian means on a basic level, not the whole somehow-earn-enough-money-for-rent-and-food-and-clothes deal. "Yeah."

They don't say anything for a minute. Is this awkward? For once Juliet genuinely can't tell. "Jack was really touched that you gave him that watch," she finds herself saying.

"Oh, well..." he scoffs, then pauses. "I never wore it anyay."

"Still. It really meant something to him." Yep. Awwwkward. Even though it's true.

A moment goes by. "You know, I meant what I said in that toast."

"I - " What is she supposed to say? _Thanks for not making a 'Princess Bride'-style toast about mawwage like my sister?_ "Thank you."

"It's just - when my father gave me that watch, when I was getting married, he told me I was making a mistake."

"Ray said that?" Juliet finds that a little hard to believe.

Christian smiles, a sad smile that doesn't reach his eyes. His blue eyes, it suddenly occurs to Juliet. Blue eyes. Blue eyes are recessive. David's eyes are just as much from her as from him, and the thought's only vaguely crossed her mind before. She's not sure what to think about this. She wonders if Jack's ever thought about it.

"I think you two are good for each other," Christian says, not answering her question. Or maybe he is, in a way?

_Why couldn't you two have been good for Jack?_ she doesn't ask. Then Gemma bursts through the double doors: "Hey, your husband is looking for you!" and oh yeah, she has a husband now, and he's wondering where she is.

* * *

Coronado Island is just across the water from San Diego, rows of beach houses and between each of them on the way to the edge of the island, glimpses of the ocean. The hotel is huge and historic and he carries her over the threshold Exactly As He Is Supposed To.

They sleep (and yeah, _eventually_, they do sleep) with the balcony doors open, the cool island breeze coming through; the sounds of the waves, and then somehow it's daytime and she's right out there, sitting on the sand with a bottle of rum tucked between her feet.

(There's a man out there, swimming.)

Why doesn't she take off her shoes? If this were any normal day, sitting here on the beach, she'd take off her shoes. Instead she takes another slug from her bottle, the alcohol burning on the way down in the best way possible. She wants it to burn (she's never going home) and she watches the bare arms plowing their way through the waves.

She tilts her head. Did she hang up her wedding dress? Does it matter? Not like she's ever going to wear it again. She should probably help Rose and Bernard organize the food supplies._ You had that baby awfully young,_ Rose told her one time. (What baby? She's tried to help so many women have babies. They died. They all died. Except for her sister. Her sister isn't allowed to die. That's what Juliet's baby is for.) (Oh yeah, there _is_ a baby, after all.)

(Juliet got married today.) (The sub blew up, just now.)

The swimming man finally hefts himself out of the waves, like it's all taking him a great deal of effort, his soaking-wet jeans hanging off his hips. "Nice day for a swim!" he trills between panting breaths.

(She and Jack are going swimming tomorrow.) (Jack died, just now, maybe.)

"What are _you_ doing here?"

"Just thought I'd take a dip." Still gulping for air, he collapses into the sand at her feet, right by her bottle of rum. By now, it's her half-bottle of rum. "Whatcha celebratin'?"

"I got married today," she tells him, matter-of-factly.

His face furrows; is he upset? Who is this person?

She nods at the ocean waiting behind them, always behind them. He turns. She sips. The ocean releases a steady, singular plume of black smoke. "That our boat?" he asks, twisting back toward her.

"What?" someone asks, right in her ear now.

She opens her eyes. Jack's watching her again, just like yesterday, only now he's her husband. "What?" she echoes.

"You said, 'It was.'" He reaches out, stokes her earlobe between his fingers. "Sorry. I didn't realize you were still sleeping."

"That's OK," she breathes, rolling onto her back, bending her knees, planting her feet flat into the mattress. She closes her eyes again, tries to think. "It was, what?"

Jack chuckles a little. His hand slides down to settle on her bare hip. "It was _your_ dream."

* * *

They're sitting on the beach on the morning of their last day, a pile of notebook paper at Jack's feet. "I think it's OK for you to let go of this by now," she'd giggled at him earlier, but here they are, about ready to get in the car, drive back up the coast, to their real lives, the rest of their lives. She is twenty-three years old. She feels a lot older than that, and a lot younger all at once.

"I still think it's unfair I have to go first," she says now.

He grins, a smile so full of happiness that it's probably in the top five of all smiles she's ever seen from him. "It _is_ a little unfair, yeah."

"And yet you're still making me go first."

"So what would you have said?" he prompts, bypassing her complaints.

Juliet sits up straighter, making a big show of holding up a handful of index cards. "OK, so I would have started with: 'When you told me you wanted us to write our own vows, I thought, there is no way I'm ever doing that.' Then I would have paused for dramatic effect, and hoped at least _some_one would have laughed a little."

"They would have."

"Well, we'll never know, will we?" She can't quite stop the smirk. "OK, so then I would have gone, 'Obviously, here we are. And I could say that the only reason I'm speaking right now is because I love you and I want you to be happy. And yes, those things are true, but-' and here I probably would have gotten a lot more nervous... 'A few years ago, I could barely speak to one person, let alone a whole room of them. But you taught me that it's OK to speak, because there are people who will listen.' Meaningful pause." (They laugh a little.) "'You taught me that there's a lot more love in this world than I could have even imagined a few years ago. And you gave me a family when I thought I'd never have that again. And maybe you didn't fix everything that was wrong, exactly, but you helped me figure out to fix myself.'"

He smiles at her, doesn't say anything. Which, frankly, is a rarity for him, but Juliet is guessing he doesn't want to give up all his cards, and there are tears in the corners of his eyes.

Her last part is all in a rush, speaking with hardly a breath: "And then... 'I hope you know that I will always listen to you, too, and I will always be your family, and I love you, and I always will.'" Juliet rolls her eyes in a pathetic attempt to break up the sappiness. "OK? Happy now?" Hey, her main goal had been to get through all that without crying in front of a million people (which frankly had been her goal in the restaurant that very first night with Jack).

_We change, but we don't change that much._

Jack's eyes are bright and she realizes at least she wouldn't have been a teary mess by herself.

(Would this have been the point where they were sort of halfway married?)

"Now you," she orders.

"Uhh... I would have started, 'After I told you I thought we should write our own vows, I immediately thought, wait, what did I just get myself into?'"

"Liar," she laughs, a nervous chuckle filled with held-back tears. Why is she so nervous? They're already married, for god's sakes. It's just, she knows how much this meant (means?) to him, for whatever reason.

"I swear," he insists, sort of laughing and still tearing up at the same time.

She tries her best eyebrow arch. The ocean glimmers at them in her peripheral version.

"'Because' - this is where I was going with this - "as I think everyone in this room is pretty aware, I'm kind of a perfectionist.'" He pauses. "That's where Marc was supposed to call out, "'Kind of?'"

"Come on, e never discussed whether having audience plants was allowed."

"Hey now, I'm trying to read my wedding vows. Can we cut out the audience participation a little?"

She purses her lips, trying to tamp down the smile. _Hypocrite_.

"'I can submit a report, do a surgery, and when it's done, it's done. How was I ever supposed to be satisfied with vows that I would have to live by the rest of our lives?'" Here, he smirks back. "Meaningful pause."

He continues over her giggle: "And the truth is, I can't. There's nothing I can say that wouldn't just be... words. But I think what I can do instead is show you, every day, that I love you and I love our David, and I will work every day to show you just how true that is."

She slips her hand into his, playing with his wedding ring. "That was good."

"I thought so," he says fake-modestly, then laughs. "Yours, anyway."

He's still smiling that happy smile, and Juliet reaches up to touch the stubble on his face. He hasn't shaved at all the whole time they've been at the beach, and for some reason it makes her feel content, safe, like time has somehow rewound. (Was he the swimming man in her dream?)

"We're married," he says suddenly, in wonderment, looking out at the ocean.

"We've been married three days," she reminds him.

"Yeah, but..." He drags his fingers through the sand, looking at the edge of the island, rolling out in front of them. "Somehow it feels more real now."


	60. Two Weeks

_Lying on the floor four stories high_  
_in the corridor between the asphalt and the sky,_  
_I am caught like bottled water,_  
_the light daughter._

- Ani DiFranco, "Work Your Way Out"

* * *

**Fall 1993, Arizona**

The office looks the same, except for the carpet. Windowless. Probably needs a paint job. Diplomas on the walls. Uncomfortable metal chairs with brown vinyl seats; rows of leather-bound books and medical journals behind the desk.

New carpet, though. She knows this since she probably spent more time staring at the floor in here than at anything (anyone) else.

Dr. Ronald T. Nichols, M.D. shuts the door behind him. "Juliet, it's so nice to see you again." His voice is rich and warm; he extends a hand.

"You, too," she says. Which had been a huge lie last time she'd seen him in person, because no one is ever happy to see an oncologist, right? Especially not one who has to tell a very much in-denial girl that she got knocked up at the ripe old age of 19.

But his hand is smooth and crisp, like new wallpaper, and she's awfully glad to see him _this_ time, and she feels a whole lot older than 23 all of a sudden, here in her tweed blazer (from Goodwill, but still) and a cream-colored scarf wrapped around her throat, running her thumb over the backs of her wedding and engagement rings. She'd cut her hair two weeks ago, trying to look older, sick of the wary glances of the other daycare moms, and now it only barely grazes the tops of her shoulders.

"This is my husband, Jack." That nervous little thrill runs through her again; she's still not used to saying that.

Through with introductions, they all take seats, and Nichols starts with small talk, asks Juliet how she's doing ("Second year of medical school already? Seems like yesterday..." "Not to me," she smiles), how David is doing. Nichols hasn't even met him yet, just looked at numbers on a chart, so Juliet digs through her purse, hands over a photo, and the doctor's lips curl into a warm smile.

"What a miracle," he remarks, shaking his head, gazing at that photo.

(Is it?)

He returns the picture, opens his folder. "Now I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but to start off... Let me assure you there isn't much risk for David. No more, really, than any other procedure performed under general anesthesia. We'll insert a into the cavity of iliac crest... the rear hip bone-" Juliet and Jack both nod, and Nichols stops to shake his head at himself, clearly realizing, of _course_ they both know what the iliac crest is.

No surgical incisions, he continues. No stitches. Just skin and bone punctures. When he actually uses the phrase "bone punctures," though, a cold shiver runs through Juliet, and she sneaks a glance at Jack. He slides his hand into her lap and she holds onto it.

Nichols flips through some pages, verifies David's latest height and weight, talking about how much they harvest, how it varies by the donor's size, and "we'll have to see how the procedure goes for David. Whatever we extract, he should be able to replace it in about four weeks."

He seems to want them to say something.

"OK," she answers nervously.

"Now, when the anesthesia wears off, he will likely feel some discomfort at the harvest site. In adult donors, we usually can control it with Tylenol, but with your permission, we'll probably give him something stronger. "

"We understand." That's Jack, this time.

Juliet suddenly feels like this room is way too hot. Or cold. Or maybe it's just that she's having a little trouble coping with the fact that she's getting exactly what she wanted. Because technically, she never wanted any of this.

Nichols finishes up on David - he'll probably only need to stay overnight, will feel better in a few days, and do you have any questions?, and you get that little boy a really great new toy or a puppy when it's all over. "Now, Rachel, on the other hand." He closes his folder, steepling his fingers on the surface. "She's given me permission to discuss this with you, and I do think you should be prepared."

He looks serious. Juliet doesn't want to be here anymore.

"Rachel will receive very large doses of chemotherapy daily during the five days before the procedure, while in the hospital. We'll be giving her much more concentrated amounts than she's ever received before. As you can imagine, the side effects will be much more intense, as well. She'll be weak and nauseous." He smiles a little, now. "And irritable."

Juliet knows this is where she's supposed to make a joke. Doesn't.

He waits, then goes on: "David will have his extraction a day after we stop the chemo on Rachel, and then she'll receive the bone marrow intravenously, right in our infusion room. But after that, we'll have to be very careful. The first two to four weeks are typically quite difficult. She'll need regular blood and platelet transfusions, and IV antibiotics. But the high doses of chemo will make this very uncomfortable for her, and she'll be extremely susceptible to any germs. She'll have to wear a mask, and so will all of you."

He goes on about antiseptic soap, protective gowns and gloves. No fresh fruits or vegetables. No flowers or plants. Daily blood tests. Mental confusion: "She may not know where she is at times, or ask the same questions over and over. She may not understand what's happening to her." And how difficult it will be for Rachel to walk or talk or read, or even sit up in bed for long periods of time. And four to eight weeks in the hospital.

Four to eight weeks in the hospital.

_Four to eight weeks in the hospital._

Juliet feels sick. She stares at Jack. He had to have known this. A lot more than she had. "Why didn't you tell me all this sooner?" She blurts out. "It's too late now!"

Jack looks taken aback. So does Dr. Nichols, for that matter.

"Too late for what?" Jack says. "I don't... What good would it have done?"

The sound of the ocean rushes into her brain. Waves smacking into twisted black rocks, the wind whipping her tied-back hair. She half-rises from her chair, not sure at all where, exactly, she'd be going. "What _good_ it would have done! I could have taken the semester off! I could have _been_ with her! Now it's too late!"

She's breathing far too fast, she doesn't know what's going on, why she's panicking like this, only she's supposed to be with her sister, she can't leave her again, she can't she can't she can't, and _JUST PROMISE ME YOU'LL BRING HER BACK IN ONE PIECE,_ and she will do anything, anything. The fingers of her right hand curl, the index finger (_the trigger finger,_ she thinks) twitching like that's supposed to make any difference in the world.

_I shouldn't have left,_ she thinks wildly, only Rachel's the one who moved out of Miami first. Maybe she shouldn't have left Arizona that summer. But then, no Jack now. Either way, though, the thought keeps slamming through her head:_ I shouldn't have left! I shouldn't have left! I shouldn't have left!_

"You're in town two weeks, right?" Dr. Nichols interrupts her mental freakout.

Two weeks...? Juliet jerks her head over to him.

"That's enough to get her through the worst of it."

Jack's nodding earnestly. She wants to fucking hit him right now. He should have told her! She feels tricked, like someone handed her a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, only it's laced with poison.

What the hell do they want her to say? 'All right, two weeks?' Yeah, right.

_"No,_ I -" Juliet's angry, so angry with herself right now. "Two weeks isn't enough!" She should have read more about it. In the old days, she'd actually stolen library books to learn more about her sister's condition. She'd had the time back then, but now she'd mainly been thinking about David, what she needed to pack for this trip, toys to keep him entertained in the hospital, what he'd be likely to want or need.

Worrying whether he'd be OK, how scared or tired he'd be.

She's still standing there, stock still while her mind races.

Juliet can't do this anymore, she can't, she's sick of being pulled in a million directions. She's sick of being so far away from her sister. Scholarship? Who the fuck cares if it means she can't be with her sister when she needs her?

Except: Rachel was the one who told her not to drop out and move to Arizona when she was pregnant. _Rachel_ was the one who told her not to take the rest of her junior year off. Rachel was the one who told her to take the MCATs as planned, no matter what. _Rachel_ was the one who told her not to take a year off between undergrad and med school.

_You spent your whole life working to get here,_ an imaginary Rachel tells her._ So don't blow it!_

"Juliet," Nichols begins gently.

She sinks back into her chair, suddenly weak. She focuses on the spine of a brown book on the shelf just beyond his left shoulder, and she focuses on that until her breathing begins again. She can't blame Jack. It's her own fault for not asking Rachel, not asking Jack, not looking up more information.

"Rachel has an excellent chance of coming out of all this just fine. She has an excellent support system. You've helped get her there, but don't forget you've still got a little boy to take care of. We'll take care of your sister. We have every reason to believe she'll be fine."

"And I'm supposed to take that on _faith?"_ she demands. Because, what a crock of shit.

Jack turns to peek at her. Gives her a strange look, actually.

But Nichols' face relaxes into a small smile. "Not at all," he says easily.

* * *

Chemo is, frankly, hell. By the end of the third day, Rachel can barely open her eyes for more than five minutes at a time, except when she's puking. Jack stays with David; Juliet watches Niall nod off in the chair nearest Rachel's bed.

"You should go back to the house," Rachel suddenly mutters, her eyes still closed.

"Rach?" Juliet whispers.

Her sister opens her eyes, just for a second. "Go put David to bed."

Juliet waits for a joke, some smart-assed remark about how she's been uninvited to the pity party or something, but it doesn't come.

Back at the house, Juliet reads to David in an armchair until he's sound asleep against her, warm and heavy, his forehead pressed into her collarbone. She closes her eyes too, leans her head against the back of the chair. Trying to ignore the rising swell of panic. She never knew she could love someone so much.

_Please let me be doing the right thing,_ she begs a universe that doesn't answer.

* * *

Finally (or too soon), it's September 22, Juliet and Jack in the waiting room. If she were into hard drugs, this would be a totally great time to get fucked up. Instead, the TV is an unwelcome buzz high up in the corner of the room. They didn't bother bringing anything to read.

Jack is a wreck, pacing endlessly, dark circles under his eyes. Neither one of them got much sleep last night, and she keeps mentally reviewing the medical release forms they'd signed for David, death and seizures and aspiration, "however unlikely."

Unlike Jack, of course, she's frozen in place on a canvas couch. Cold and sweating at the same time. No one else is even in here.

"It shouldn't be taking this long," he mutters.

_Shut up shut up shut up._ "Maybe they had a backup in the OR."

She could be using this time with Rachel; instead she's in this tiny little square room with Jack, who's one step away from turning into a caged animal. She can't leave him, not now. They have to be together. This is all her fault.

CNN finishes up a brief story on President Clinton's scheduled speech for tonight. He'll be addressing Congress on health care reform. How timely. The video cuts back to the same ones that have been replayed all day long, the worst train crash in Amtrak's history, Los Angeles to Miami, 47 people dead somewhere in Alabama.

"And as for those survivors who have been pulled from the wreckage..." an anchor is saying.

"How are we even supposed to change this channel?" Jack suddenly demands. Silently, Juliet glances around for a remote control. She's not going to fight about TV with him right now. Even as tall as he is, the wall-mounted TV is beyond his reach. Fuming, Jack grabs the nearest piece of furniture, a small end table, and shoves it over to the wall, climbs on top of it.

She's not so sure she approves of his stress-coping mechanisms, as he flips through the channels, cheesy sitcoms and more news channels about the train derailment. "It crashed, I get it," he snarls under his breath.

"Jack," she finally says, gently, in the quiet voice that usually grabs his attention.

He pauses, turns around. "WHAT?" he barks.

What, indeed. She has no idea. "Come down from the table first."

He pauses, dumbfounded, and glances back at the TV, finally on a baseball game. Squatting down, he holds onto the sides of the table, steps off with one leg, then the other. Then he crosses his arms over his chest, nostrils flaring, glaring at her like she's the enemy.

"I'm sorry for all of this," she finally says, her heart racing.

"You - " he begins, and then there's the soft sound of nurses' shoes at the door, and they swivel around. The woman there smiles at them, and delivers the only words they want to hear:

"Your son is waking up."

* * *

David's face is mottled from half-shed tears, his little face sleepy and confused. She has to avert her eyes from the IV in his hand, the way his other arm is strapped down to keep him from pulling it out.

When he realizes they're there, he begins crying in earnest, maybe or maybe not the same way she's caught him looking to her in the past, to see if she's watching before he bothers with tears.

"Can we - " she's pulling at the straps on his arm, she wants to hold her fucking son, goddammit, full of anger right now at the hospital or Jack or maybe the universe itself.

The doctor himself frees his arm, letting Juliet lower the bed rail, David reaching for her. She folds him into her arms and just rocks with him. "It's OK, baby, it's OK. All done now. You did so good. So good."

"Just watch him for the IV," the doctor says now. Oh, that's right, he's still here. There are still other things to think about. She glances at him. Jack too. "He did fine, came through with flying colors. We'll be giving him a low dose of painkillers in his IV through tomorrow morning."

Juliet tries to ignore the tears on her own face, hating herself a little. Her next words come out choked: "What about the harvest?"

"Almost two quarts. They're preparing it now."

"Thank you," she whispers. _Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you._

* * *

Somewhere under the layers of blankets, Rachel is half-asleep in her hospital room. Niall rises from his seat when he sees Juliet come in. Everyone's wearing those surgical masks now. "He's OK?"

"He's OK," she barely gets out. "They should be ready for her soon."

Worry dents Niall's forehead. "They told us."

Rachel half mumbles something; Juliet leans in close.

"You should be with David."

"I'm going right back. I just wanted to see you before you went in." She'd squeeze her sister's hand, only she's probably supposed to wear gloves for that sort of thing. Another day unrolls in her mind: The two of them in the backseat of Rachel's battered Nova, as Niall drove them back from Rachel's first chemo.

Feeling lost and alone and scared on that perfect blue-sky day, like there was almost nothing left, but it was all going to crash down anyway.

Then and now seem very very far apart all of a sudden, and there's suddenly a team of medical workers at the door.

"Bring her back in one piece," she whispers as they wheel her down the hall.

* * *

Rachel's in and out a lot at first. The nosebleeds are the worst, for some reason, leaving Juliet with a sick, panicked feeling in her stomach. "Of course I'll watch the Charlie Brown Halloween show with you," Rachel murmurs on the second day.

"The what?" Niall asks.

"When we were kids," Juliet tells him, confused. Rachel didn't watch that with her; that was the year her bad dreams had started. Juliet wills the bitterness to evaporate.

_It's not anyone's fault._

By the weekend, Jack has to leave to return to work. Juliet wheedles childcare favors out of Duncan and Allie; by then, miraculously, David is fine, like none of it ever happened. (It all happened.)

At the hospital she presses tissues under her sister's nose, wills herself not to throw up. "How many times do I have to tell you - " Rachel says.

"What?"

"You have to do your homework before TV!"

"I know," she reassures her. "I promise, I'll get it all done."

"Don't promise. Just go get your workbook, Ju..." Rachel closes her eyes, then opens them again. "I'm not joking around, mister!" Except she's still looking at Juliet, who glances at Niall.

"OK, she's going right now," he says hoarsely, stepping up to the bed.

In the hallway Juliet presses her hands into her eyes, trying to hold back the sobs. This is _normal_, it's all normal, they said it could be like this. She wants Jack, she wants... something, someone, she doesn't know.

Her sister's scream cuts through the hallway and Juliet bursts back into the room. "NO - NO - NO -_ GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!"_ Rachel roars.

Juliet flinches. Lainey, one of the night nurses, is right behind Juliet. "Honey, it's OK, no one's here to hurt you - "

Rachel's sitting straight up in bed, her eyes full of fury. "You're_ lying!_" she spits. "What - what - what - whatever your name is - GET THE FUCK _OUT_ OF HERE!"

"I'm gonna get her a sedative, honey; I'll be right back," Lainey says quickly, darting around Juliet.

"I don't have to - what the fuck do you MEAN, she just fucking fell_?_ That is _BULLSHIT!_ You - you - you - " Rachel pants, like she's not seeing them here at all.

Juliet's never seen Niall's face like this, crumpled up so far into agony, and she leans in to her sister. "Nobody fell, Rachel. Everyone is safe. We're right here."

"Tell James..."

"Tell James what?" Who's James? And why is she suddenly so dizzy? Juliet grabs on to the edge of the bed.

Rachel's face is contorted with anger and fear and grief. "Tell James he is a LIAR and I want him to get_ OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE!"_

What's she supposed to do, just go along with this the way she went along with the homework? Seemingly reading the struggle on her face, Niall nods. "James," she says gently, to no one. "Go away."

Then Lainey is right behind her, injecting something into Rachel's IV, and her eyes start to flutter. She leans back against her pillows. The last thing she says that night is: "Can you pick up Julian from school?"

_Who?_

Across the darkened room, Niall's face is gray. "I didn't think it would be this bad," he whispers.

_Me neither,_ she doesn't say, trying too hard not to cry. "They said to expect..."

"Nobody can expect_ this,"_ he says, now very angry. Juliet can't even remember seeing him this angry before.

"I guess not."

* * *

Juliet's eyes blink open at the sun-soaked room, the eighth morning after the transplant. For once, Rachel's awake, and she's staring at her, seemingly very lucid this time.

"Hey," Juliet says softly.

"Juliet?" Rachel whispers, like she can't even believe it.

"Yeah?" She drags her chair closer in, and her sister reaches out, touches the skin of her cheeks above the mask.

"Why are you wearing that?"

"We're supposed to. To keep you safe."

"Take it off. Please. Please."

Juliet glances at the closed door. Slowly, she unhooks the loops of the mask from behind one ear, then the other. Rachel does nothing but stare, her eyebrows lowered, her mouth slightly open. "You're... I don't understand."

"You're here in the hospital. You got your bone marrow transplant a few days ago. I'm here with you right now, and Niall's home with David. He needed to get some sleep."

At that, Rachel's face twists into utter confusion. Was that too much information for her right now?

"You're here in the hospital," Juliet repeats. "Everything is going to be fine. It worked."

"But you're... you're - " Rachel's mouth moves around a series of unspoken words, like she doesn't know which ones to pick. Her face crumples. "But you're so young! You're alive? You're _alive!_ You're alive! You're alive. Oh my god. Oh my _god_, Juliet. Oh my god." She bursts into tears. "I don't understand. How are we _here?_ What _happened?_ Everything started _over_ again? But things are different! You have David. You're married to - oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god, he was one of the Oceanic Six! But what about my - oh my god. Everything - everything - you - " like she can't get the words out fast enough.

"I..." Is she still supposed to play along? But Rachel seems so clear-minded now, even though what she's saying is mostly gibberish.

"What year is it?" Rachel interrupts.

Juliet wills herself not to freak out. "1993. September 30, 1993. Thursday."

Her sister starts rubbing frantically at her own face, ripping the mask off. "I'm so young," she says, more to herself than Juliet, it seems. Patting over her cheeks, her forehead. "I was - "

"Rachel," Juliet says now, her panic rising. Should she get the nurse again? Except Rachel's not freaking out, right? Just run-of-the-mill confusion again.

"But _Julian_ - you're not going into research - you're not going to be able to -" Rachel is gasping again, fixating on Juliet's face. "Oh my god. You don't remember, do you?"

She doesn't know what to do, what to say. "Remember what?"

Rachel takes a huge breath, looking toward the windows for a second before bowing her head, pressing her hand against the soft hat on her head, squeezing her eyes shut. Letting it out slowly. _"Everything,"_ she whispers.


	61. This Time

**A wise woman once said, "The universe has a way of course-correcting." In case you haven't quite picked up on this... the universe saved Rachel... by killing their mother! (And causing David to be born.) Hey, no one ever said it was a KIND universe. **

**Since this time around, Juliet will never go to the island and will never strike the deal to save Rachel via Ben/Jacob, eventually Rachel would have died. Obviously, Juliet had to do *something* to cont****r**ibute to he**r** cu**r**e.  


**So their mother got sick, and was going to die, so Juliet decided she wanted to move away and start over somewhere new. Hence, Jack... David... Rachel's cancer being cured. Thanks, universe! Sort of.**

**This message brought to you by Eloise Hawkins, the letter C, and the numbers 4, 8, 15... oh, you get the point.**

* * *

_I swear some stuff you just see better from further away._

- Ani DiFranco, "Knuckle Down"

* * *

"Hey! _Melina!_ When I said that order's up, did I mention it's up _today?"_

Juliet glances up from her mountain of schoolwork. The waitress - Melina - probably all of eighteen, is pressing her lips together in a way that indicates there's any number of things she'd like to say to Andy on the other side of the stainless steel divider. Instead, she wipes her hands on her apron, shakes the droplets of dishwasher water off a brown plastic tray, starts loading up_._

A minute later, she's sliding Juliet's plate onto the table. "Can I get you anything else?"

Juliet caps her highlighter, looks up at her. "He's an asshole."

Melina pauses. "Uh... what?"

"Andy." She points to the counter. "I used to be exactly where you are. Don't worry. He has no real power here."

Melina blinks a couple of times, then flushes. "OK. Um. I'm just gonna, um..." She gestures back toward the kitchen before slinking off again.

Right. As if Juliet would to be able upset the balance of power in such an isolated little kingdom. She actually chuckles into her coffee cup before moving on to her eggs and toast, reaching for the strawberry jam. Pretty much the same breakfast Rachel had gotten at the hospital this morning, actually. They're twelve days out now, and Juliet has to be back in class on Monday.

But there is seriously something weird going on. Rachel's has periods of total confusion, and periods of total lucidity, but then there are all those in-between times when she just gets so quiet, starts staring, frowning down at her hands like she's trying desperately to remember something.

Then there's the crying. Before, Juliet could probably count on one hand the number of times she's seen Rachel cry. Rachel of the hard-as-nails facade, the I'm Going to Joke About This So You Don't See How Scared/Sad/Upset I Am method.

For some reason over the past four days, though, every time Juliet's walked into Rachel's room, her sister's started fucking _crying_, grabbing for Juliet's hands, needing a hug. Another time, all Juliet was doing was dividing up the newspaper, some Oldies station playing in the background. A new (old) cheesy song came on, that one about how _things'll! Be great! When you're! Dowwwwntown!,_ and she'd looked up to see Rachel's eyes brimming.

Rachel had grabbed her by the wrist, and Juliet had relinquished her grip on the sports section. (_I know you don't want that,_ Juliet didn't say.)

"Promise me something."

Juliet understood the staring, forceful gaze, hell, she's the one who'd perfected it. But seeing Rachel use it on her, that's something new, and it was making Juliet uncomfortable. Rachel's eyes looked so much bigger with the surgical mask obscuring most of her face. Pleading.

"OK?"

"Promise me, no matter what happens, that if someone comes along and offers you a job in a remote location, you _turn_ _that bastard_ _down_."

Like anyone is just going to come along and offer her a job. She knows how stressful Matching Day is, there's no way she's _not _going to have to fight tooth and nail for a decent placement, especially one that keeps her and Jack in the same place. But Rachel just kept staring at her, holding onto her wrist. "Sure. Of course."

"I know you don't believe me. I know you think I'm being weird. You just, you have to keep your word, OK? You have to. I'm NOT crazy." Anger washed over her face just then.

"Of course you're not crazy, Rach. You're just - you've been through a lot. It's OK. I promise."

Rachel closed her eyes, leaned against her pillows. "Thank you," she whispered.

Juliet knows, she _knows_, the doctors have said all this is par for the course, but seriously? It just doesn't seem normal.

* * *

She's back at the hospital in time for Niall to leave for class - he'd finished up his undergrad degree in literature last spring, in now for a Masters in education. He scoops up his backpack as Juliet puts hers down, him offering her a silent evaluation: _weird, but OK_.

For the first time in four days, Rachel doesn't tear up when Juliet sits down next to her. Instead, her eyes are transfixed on the TV screen, a story how about Chelsea Clinton will dance a part in the Washington Ballet's performance of "The Nutcracker" this Christmas.

Fascinating.

When the anchor moves on to another story, Rachel finally deigns to look at her sister. Her eyebrows are raised. "Amazing, huh?"

_Well, she's kind of nerdy, but... _"I think I read somewhere that she's been taking ballet since she was a little kid."

Rachel's eyes soften and crinkle up, and underneath the mask, Juliet knows she's grinning what's obviously a private grin. "Yeah," she finally says. Settles down against her pillows again.

Juliet takes her through the preliminaries: how's she feeling right now, can Juliet get her anything, does she want to drink some water, does she want anything to read...

Rachel just keeps shaking her head - "I can't concentrate well enough to read" - but then she pauses. "Actually," she says, "do you think the hospital gift shop would have a notebook or anything?"

It doesn't, but there's a CVS a block from the hospital, and Juliet delivers it with a flourish, holding up a packet of Bics as well. "I got pens," she starts, but realizes Rachel's asleep.

(What does she want a notebook for?)

* * *

Juliet's dragging her highlighter through her renal physiology text - now that things are calming down, she's starting to freak out about everything she's missed - and Rachel's scribbling away in her new notebook when she suddenly inhales sharply, starts sputtering and coughing and choking. Juliet's out of her chair in a flash, her book thunking onto the floor. She grabs onto Rachel's wrists. "Arms up, come on."

Rachel's eyes are wide, blinking, and she curls forward, coughing harder. Juliet reaches over, grabs a basin as Rachel gasps for air, ripping off her surgical mask.

"It's all right. Don't panic. It's OK," Juliet tells her in the calmest voice she can muster, even as her own heartbeat starts to rev up, a V8 engine turning over and over with nowhere to go.

Rachel angles her head up, looking at Juliet for only a second, but it's long enough for Juliet to register to the blood streaming from her nose. Rachel leans over the basin again, her coughs evolving into urgent hacking barks, her hands over her mouth. When she pulls them away, they're covered in blood, and Rachel leans over to spit more into the basin. Coughs again, more blood as she whimpers, bent over.

Finally she looks up at Juliet again, her eyes wild with fear, and this is where Juliet's supposed to tell her again that _this is normal, don't panic,_but there's a thin stream of red trickling from the corner of her sister's mouth and suddenly Juliet can't breathe.

_Help_, somewhere inside her head a voice is screaming. _I'm down here! Help me! Can anyone hear me?_ _HELP!_ And Juliet's gasping too, she can almost taste iron in her own mouth, digging her fingers into the side rail of Rachel's bed,_ I'm down HERE!_, her knees going weak, and she can only reach over, pushing the button to the nurses' station.

_Help us_, she thinks, her heart thumping with unexplained fear. ___W_e'_r_e down here.

* * *

The upshot of all this: Rachel's fine, and Juliet probably needs more sleep. She hopes, anyway, because a future doctor freaking out at the sight of a little fucking blood? Ugh. She's trying not to think about it too much.

The next evening, Niall's reading to Rachel in a low voice, although Rachel is probably not following along in the least. Juliet's half-asleep in a chair, her heels propped up on the edge, her knees up to her chest. She opens her eyes when she hears feet at the door, two orderlies supposed to take Rachel for another blood transfusion.

"One of you can come with her if you want."

Niall glances at Juliet. "Do you mind if it's me?"

Juliet shakes her head, not quite meeting his eyes.

Rachel frowns a little, though, looking at Niall, her cheeks swelling into what's not at all a real smile. Juliet's heart pangs in protest._ You're just confused right now, Rachel. Sick and confused._

Alone in the room now, Juliet contemplates calling the house, checking in with David and Duncan. But right next to the phone...

The spiral binding of Rachel's notebook is cool against her fingers, the cover shiny and slick. She's spent _hours _writing in it already. Juliet looks up at the door again, every cell in her body telling her to stop.

Instead she flips open the cover.

_Mittelos Biosciences_  
_Richard Alpert_  
_Portland (no) (but if that why we were born there this time? !)_  
_Name of airfield? ? ?_

_Julian_  
_5/8/02_  
_7#, 13 oz._

_donor #? When to start looking? Will it even work? Probably not w/o Juliet's stuff, what am I supposed to do about that? fuck fuck fuck fuck_

_Walked at 13 months to the day. Painted oatmeal on the wall. Spongebob. Mrs. Kendrick, 3rd grade. Ronnie. Emily jr. prom. Adria sr. prom. Curfew/grounded two wks, he said was worth it._

_please please whatever god please_

_He went to NAU, is that why I went there? WHY? What does it matter? Should I not have quit?_

_Juliet MCU not UCLA, why? Mom d. 1988 here not 2000 WTF? (no one says "WTF" yet)_

_No Niall before, what is that supposed to mean? (where is Lawrence, do I really care? Prob not)_

_Julian m. Sera Okobi in San Diego spring 2031, Sera d.o.b. 12/12... 2004? (will she still be born?)_

_Grandkids:_

_1. Anna - Bought her purple tricycle. Liked her toast burned. Williams College. Married Jon. Nathan and Alex (babies). Alex = more hair._

_2. Stepha - We went to Sea World and she wet her pants. Anna kept making fun of her. Loved animals. Stuffed kitties. University of Washington. Nature Conservancy. Married to ... No, engaged. Married?_

_3. Easton - superheroes. ATVs, Sera always worried. First place county science fair, 6th or 7th grade. Speeding ticket. He was in college...? Where?_

_this is real this all happened you are not crazy_

_97 Clinton again_  
_01 GW Bush_  
_05 GW Bush_  
_09 Obama_  
_13 Obama_  
_17 Warren_  
_21 Nichols _  
_25 Nichols_  
_29 Taylor_  
_33 Chelsea Clinton! ? ! _  
_37 C. Clinton oh my god she's such a little nerd right now_  
_41 Stephens_  
_45 Golden_  
_49 Golden_  
_53 ? ? ? Something with an S?_

_(dementia? ? ? find out about supplements/vitamins for brain health?)_

_Stockmarket? INTERNET! ! ! _

_James Ford_  
_P.I._  
_Snarky Asian friend (name?)_  
_Alabama. L.A.? Albuquerque? (daughter, not yet, 2002ish?) (will she still be born?)_  
_He would be 25ish now._

_Where is Edmund? Another bus would be nice..._

_Jack Oceanic 6, why? HE HATES FLYING_

_Other Oceanic 6:_  
_2. criminal girl_  
_3. baby, never got why he was counted as 1 of 6, he wasn't on plane_  
_4. fat guy_  
_5. ?_  
_6. ?_

_They disappeared again (except for baby), criminal chick only one of those who came back, what happened to Jack that time? ? ? DID HE DIE TOO? Wtf what if David..._

_Is everything the same? No no no _

_Family things are different (Mom, Juliet, me a little except I still got cancer but then I was sick on and off for ~1__2_ years, no transplant) (DAVID) (what if Julian...) Big world events going the same. 9/11 ? ? ? 

_* * * WILL JACK STILL GET ON OCEANIC FLIGHT? When was that? ? ? Couple years after Juliet was gone? Longer? What about the second flight? _

_IS_  
_THIS _  
_REAL_

_it has to be  
_

_Tradeoff? Juliet alive, no Julian? _

_James came 2009_

_what about him now? (except,  Jack)_  
_what about Julian_  
_what about everything_

_Don't buy a house 2007-8 or 2029-31. Very good time 2016._  
_401K be careful 2007, low risk options_  
_Car accident in the Toyota, broken collarbone, get quad airbags when they come out just in case_

_Photography stuff?_

_Can we change/prevent things? JULIET  
_

* * *

It just goes on and on like that, pages and pages of names, addresses. Lists of imaginary people, and places Rachel's never been, and completely made-up facts. Pages and pages of "memories" about someone named _Julian_, of all things. There's even a paragraph about a park where, supposedly, Juliet had a memorial. Because, the notebook says, Juliet was dead.

Her sister is so panicked and confused, and Juliet feels like she's going to be sick.

But later on, it's _Rachel_ curled around a barf basin in her bed, waiting for the latest round of IV anti-nausea meds to kick in. Juliet's sitting close to her, holding her hand, trying not to make eye contact.

Suddenly Rachel tugs her hand away. "Jules?" she asks in a low voice.

She forces herself to met her sister's eyes. "Yeah?"

But what she says next... well, Juliet wasn't expecting it, is all. "Do you love Jack?"

"What? Of course I do."

Rachel keeps the side of her face pressed against the pillow, moves her only eyes. "And you're glad you married him? You're happy?"

Juliet nods her head emphatically, not quite trusting her voice. Things aren't complicated at home, at least not in the way they are with her sister right now. Sure, they're complicated in that they never seem to have enough money or time or sleep, and corralling a toddler comes with its own difficulties, but still, they're In This Together and they're a family even though they've been married for all of six weeks, and sometimes she loves her life so much she doesn't know how to handle it. Finally she gets it together enough to say, "Why are you asking me this?"

"I was just... wondering if... if, I don't know, you ever wonder if there's anything more."

Part of her wants to ask, _How should I know? I barely had a chance to find out. _"No."

"That's good," Rachel says simply. She looks like she's decided something.

The silence is heavy between them; Juliet's never been one to mind silences, but this one is different. _Don't believe whatever's in that notebook,_ she wants to tell Rachel.

"Sometimes I just, I wonder."

"What do you wonder?" Juliet finally asks. She's not used to her sister sounding so... lost.

"What if Niall and I were never _supposed _to be together?"

Her throat swells up. "I think you're just confused."

"...Well, _obviously."_

Juliet tries to rally. "I mean, who else would put up with you?" _Please, please, don't throw this all away._

Rachel's laugh is a single note.

* * *

Jack picks them up at the airport, and David is ecstatic when his dad scoops him up. Juliet doesn't get much of a chance to talk to Jack, what with David keeping up a sometimes-nonsensical burst of chatter from the backseat. Niall took him to the playground one day (true), but also, apparently while they were there, a big dragon chased them.

Exciting stuff.

Jack puts him to bed that night, while Juliet shuffles through the course notes a classmate had dropped off with Jack earlier that day. She's excused (for now) from the unit test, but she's going to have to figure out a way to double up on courses when this section comes up again for the cohort behind her. Stupid renal physiology.

She's trying to study when suddenly she senses Jack looming over her, and he slides an envelope slides over her book. She tilts her head, staring at it.

"Open it."

Inside is a... stack of plane tickets? Apparently she's going to Dallas-Fort Worth on Nov. 23? "Um..."

"Keep going," he says impatiently. "I couldn't get them direct."

Underneath that is another ticket, this one from DFW to Flagstaff, and then a set coming back five days later. Underneath those is a corresponding set for David. Her heart leaps and sinks at the same time. "Thanksgiving?"

Jack grins. "Yeah. I thought you'd want to be able to see her again soon."

"You're not going," she says softly.

He sinks down next to her desk chair, sliding his hands under the backs of her knees. "I have to work."

She swallows the lump in her throat. "OK. Thank you," because she doesn't know what else to say." Things are too complicated. She's not sure she can handle more time in Arizona this soon. She wants to be home, with Jack. Even if he's working practically nonstop, he'd still come home at some point. And plane tickets are expensive, but she's not going to ask how he managed it. "Thank you," she says again, because Jack is starting to look too sad-puppydog that she's not bubbling over with excitement.

* * *

For her Jack-less Thanksgiving in Arizona, Juliet makes eggplant parmesan, in honor of that dorm Thanksgiving where she and Rachel were both terrified of dealing with a turkey. Making a turkey involves sewing, and that is so not OK.

But this time around, the eggplant parm is just a weird little side dish, and Niall's standing right beside them in the kitchen, dealing with, at this point, a mostly cooked turkey. The counter is covered with wine glasses, dirty dishes, their stalled efforts at making homemade cranberry sauce.

On the kitchen floor - because every available surface is covered right now - the new Pearl Jam album is playing from Rachel and Niall's portable CD player. David keeps trying to mess with it, so Juliet dragged in the Duplo blocks in a partially successful effort to distract him.

"That... is really disgusting," Juliet tells Niall, watching his hand slip into the turkey's... um... nether regions?

Niall raises an eyebrow. "And this from the future doctor."

"I'm not a future veterinarian."

Niall jams some more stuffing up... there. "I don't think this would qualify me as one, either."

Rachel is sitting half-limp in a chair, watching the proceedings. She's been out of the hospital for two weeks, and according to Niall, self-sufficient for about a week. But in the day and a half Juliet and David have been here, Juliet hasn't heard a single weird thing come out of her mouth. (She wonders if Rachel still has that notebook, but she hasn't seen it.)

Gotta assume that's progress.

* * *

On Saturday afternoon after a fairly thorough search, Juliet finally finds Rachel out back, chopping wood... or actually, _not _chopping wood. Instead she's leaning against the handle of an axe, the edge of the blade on the ground. Staring at the tree stump they use for chopping.

David had been really loud all morning, giggling up a storm, and she could see her sister getting increasingly... what? Annoyed?

"Do I need to remind you that you've only been out of bed for, what? A week? You can't get me or Niall to do that?"

"Oh, please. He can shove his hand up a turkey's ass all day long if he wants to. And you, your hands are supposed to be delicate instruments one day. 'Sides, I like it. I mean, how many chores involve _medieval weaponry?"_ Rachel looks back down at the axe. Juliet realizes in actuality, her sister is probably not strong enough yet to even lift it.

"Well, excuse me for prying, but I looked in your bathroom cabinets and - do you have any tampons?"

Rachel freezes. "Um, I. Um. You can probably send Niall out to town." Her face flushes red.

Juliet feels her hands go clammy. Wait a second, is Rachel _pregnant_ or - but no, there's no way - and _hello_, Juliet's supposed to be a med student; the chemo, the radiation, good lord she's dense sometimes. "It's..." she begins slowly, not knowing at all what she's about to say._ ...OK?_

(It's not.)

Rachel's voice comes out all in a rush. "Julie, I haven't had my period in like four years, all right?" The muscles around the corners of her mouth tighten. "Life... is a tradeoff, and I guess this time I got you. And _god_, I missed you. I missed you so fucking much. Do you even have any concept of that? But every time I think I should be grateful to have you, I think about... _him_, and I just get mad, and then I think that's not fair or right at all, and..."

Juliet is just openly gaping at this point - what is Rachel even _talking_ about?

"You know what? It's not a big deal. Just send Niall out. Go emasculate him a little." Her sister doesn't look at her, staring at what was once a massive tree branch. She lifts the axe with all she's got, slams it down.

Juliet backs away until she reaches the porch.

* * *

**Please leave a review! This chapter was unexpectedly hard to write.**


	62. Three Years

**This chapter goes out to Jealena for leaving review #600, and also everyone else who reviewed last chap! Thank you so much!**

**I think this chapter is one of my favorites of this story, so I really hope you like it! It's also the biggest one ever. Chapter needs to go on a diet. **

**Also, please note sliiiight detour back in time for the first scene in this.**

**ALSO, please note: On the show when we see Juliet in Rachel's apartment, there's professional-looking photography equipment in the corner. I'm telling you this because of a reference to that in this chapter (and something in her notebook last chapter).**

**OK, I'm done now**.

* * *

_It's just that kind of evening_  
_that cracks open like a half-shaken beer,_  
_cool and refreshing and running down your arm_  
_and baby there's really no other place I'd rather be than here_  
_so pardon my periodic alarm._

- Ani DiFranco, "Way Tight"

* * *

**Oct. 16, 1993**

David's laughter is contagious, filling her up in a way that almost nothing else can. He's in the rope swing Jack hung in the oak tree over the summer, and she pushes David from the front, grabbing onto his red sneakers each time he reaches her, pretending she doesn't hear Jack sneaking up behind her.

(She hasn't seen him in almost three days, their schedules frustratingly out of whack.)

But OK, it's hard to pretend when David is looking over her shoulder, giggling and pointing. She grabs his ankles, holding him suspended, and Jack grabs her at the hips, pressing up against her from behind, kissing her cheek. Relief floods through her; it's been too long this time, and without saying anything, he slides his hands along her arms, toward David's feet - and then Jack freezes.

Close to her ear, she hears him suck in his breath. "Juliet," he says in a tight, strained voice. His fingers tighten around her forearms, compressing the bruises there.

"Ow." She lets go of David's feet, and he flies away from them in his swing, giggling all the while.

"What the - " Jack grabs her by the shoulders now, spinning her around to face him, holding her wrists in his hands. His face is wide-open and panicked as he surveys the mottled marks dotting her arms, and she realizes what he's thinking. What he's remembering, how Rachel's arms had once looked.

"Jack." She wrenches a hand free, reaching up to cup his face. "We started blood draws this week in school. On each other."

He lets out a long, slow, gasping breath. "I forgot." He draws her hands higher, pressing a kiss to the inside of each elbow.

* * *

**Dec. 8, 1993**

"We should make your list for Santa tonight," she tells David as he scribbles at the table. This is the first year he really "gets" the whole concept, and it's been so much fun. And also a good way to get him to behave. "Have you thought about what to ask for?"

David reaches for the purple crayon. "Cars. And Magma-Doodle like on the TV." (She bites back a laugh. Magma-Doodle sounds like it could get kind of hot, but maybe their heating bills would go down.) He finishes, "And a real baby."

_Uh..._Her eyes slide across the room toward Jack, who's reading a medical journal on the couch. Did he hear? She sees his eyebrows twitch. Yes, yes he totally did. And he's not looking up.

The thing is, more babies isn't exactly something they've talked about. It would undoubtedly be a disaster right now. But... someday? When they have decent salaries and a better place to live and they can decide to do it on purpose? _Yes, oh yes,_she thinks. Of course, that's her automatic thought with this sweet little face looking up at her; she is trying to imagine what exactly Jack would say about it when she realizes she hasn't answered him yet.

Jack finally speaks up instead. "Santa doesn't bring babies."

_Santa doesn't bring babies, but please, PLEASE, little one, don't ask who does until you're at least six. Or eight. Or eighteen. Or sixty._

"Like... Aimee's baby," he says patiently, and goes back to his scribbling.

Juliet practically goes limp with awkward relief. Aimee is a little girl David plays with at daycare, and she's always carrying around a doll that cries and blinks. "Like her baby doll? You want a baby doll?"

"Uh huh." David puts down the purple crayon, trades it for a yellowy green one.

Jack is what? Frowning at her now? This is a _good_thing. Awkwardness averted! She shakes her head at him, ever so slightly.

"We can draw a picture for Santa," Juliet tells David. So her son wants a doll; so what? From across the room, Jack's pantomiming something to her now. He's... throwing a ball? She tilts her head at him.

"David, maybe you want to ask Santa for baseball stuff?" Jack prompts.

David doesn't look up from the construction paper, but he appears to be considering it. "Cars," he repeats. "And Magma-Doodle, and a baby."

"I bet he can do that," she tells David.

Jack looks back down at his journal.

_This isn't about you,_ she mentally warns him.

* * *

**Feb. 16-20, 1994**

At first she's tempted to let the phone go straight to the answering machine. She and David are building towers out of everything they can, wooden blocks and Duplo pieces and his random assortment of empty shoeboxes and vacated oatmeal cans. But the caller just hangs up, and then the phone starts ringing all over again, so despite David's whine of protest, she's up and across the room.

Niall never calls directly, so she knows right away something's wrong. Just not what. "It's Rachel," he says unnecessarily.

_We're already wasting time._She's scanning the living room, trying to think how quickly she could be packed, whether she should take David or leave him with Mrs. Dawson until Jack gets home. Her words come out impossibly fast and flat: "What happened."

"She's, um..." His voice is hoarse, and Juliet's heart is racing. "She's, just, um, she left a note."

That wasn't at all what Juliet was bracing herself for, and her mouth opens silently at first. "She - what?"

"She ah - " Niall drags in a breath that may or may not be a sob. "She left a note saying, don't worry about her, she had to check on something but she'll be back in a few days."

_"Check_on something? Oh god, what - has she been confused again lately?"

"She seemed fine. She seemed_ fine!_ I called her doctors, I called the _police_- you don't think she's coming to you, do ya?"

Juliet's turned around so David can't see her face. "She didn't say anything."

"What do I do? What do - what do we do?"

She pauses, thinking. "What exactly did the note say?"

There's the rustling of paper, and then:_ "You probably think this is crazy, but I just had to go and check on something. Don't worry. I'll be back as soon as I can, probably in a few days. Love, R."_

"Did you look for her notebook?"

Juliet can hear the hesitation in his voice. Finally, he says, "Yeah. Yeah, I did. Couldn't find it."

Dilemma time: Does she tell Niall she read the notebook, and risk freaking him out more? (Has _he_ read it?) What if there was a clue, somehow? There were a rhole lot of places in there, though, and any one could lead them on a wild goose chase. Portland's the only one that really sticks out in her mind, and that one had a notation next to it saying, _no_.

"What did the police say?"

"That it's completely within her rights to disappear if she wants to."

_Nobody is disappearing._A wave of panic crashes over her, and she squeezes a hand over her eyes.

Over the next four days, Niall calls at least twice a day. Juliet can't concentrate in class, or with David. Jack makes a pot of chicken soup on Thursday night and they eat that for lunch and dinner throughout the weekend.

Saturday night after David's asleep, she gets drunk in their living room, the kind of sloppy drunk that can only lead to sloppy crying, except Jack picks her up and carries her into the bedroom. Lies her down on the bed and curls around her and for once, doesn't try to say a word. It's the only thing that keeps her from feeling like she's about to fall off the surface of the Earth.

On Sunday morning her eyelids feel almost glued closed. The space next to her is cool - Jack's off at work already. The ringing phone sounds like it's underwater, but she's out of bed and down the hall in just the nick of time.

"It's me, don't freak out," Rachel says all in a rush.

There have been a few times in her life that she's experienced such an immense rush of relief, it's felt like enough to sustain her for a long, long time: Her mom getting a good reading from the oncologist, once upon a time. Getting through a mind-bendingly difficult exam in organic chemistry, and then finding out she'd scored the highest grade in the class. Finally admitting to Rachel that she was pregnant. Hearing that first squawking cry from David. Jack buzzing up to her apartment, the night the riots begin. Seeing David after his surgery. The first day Rachel had seemed to turn the corner after her transplant.

And now, hearing her sister's goddamn voice on the other line. "Where. Are you," she grits out between clenched teeth, starting to cry.

"Back in Flag. Don't cry, Julie. Please, just - don't cry. I just had to check on something."

"Where did you go?"

"It's... complicated."

"Just tell me where you went."

"You won't ask why?"

_This isn't a fair deal at all._"OK."

"L.A. I went to L.A. I'm home now, Niall's here, everything's OK. OK?"

What's she supposed to say? David's woken up by now, standing in front of her in his spaceship pajamas, wanting breakfast. "OK," she says into the phone.

* * *

**April 4, 1994**

Well, here's somewhere she's never been before: underneath a VW bus. New experiences are supposed to be valuable, right?

But probably only when she has any idea what she's looking at. DeGroot's all excited because the damn thing is finally fixed, and he'd encouraged her to take a look underneath at all the shiny new van parts.

Of course, "encouraged" is probably the wrong word. "Insisted" was more like it. _What a loon._

It's dark under here. And everything is so... so... so _close_, is all. How do mechanics spend so much time in such cramped quarters? She feels a little claustrophobic, actually... panicked, thinking weird thoughts, like how the oil pans in these always drain so much more slowly than in the Jeeps... and slides out from underneath, blinking in the sunlight.

DeGroot is standing right there. "Well?" he asks hopefully. "Did you see anything?"

* * *

**May 23, 1994**

Juliet's face-down on the couch when she hears the front door unlock. Jack's footsteps shuffle toward her in the dark. Their hissing tape of 'Nevermind' is playing low; Kurt Cobain's been dead for less than two months. So it goes, that other Kurt, Kurt Vonnegut, would say. This summer she might have time to read again.

"Juliet?" Jack half-whispers.

"I'm awake," she mumbles into the cushions. She sits up, turns on a light, blinking, and he's staring at her anxiously. She took the first part of the USMLE today. The same exam Jack took the week David was conceived, actually. Eight hours, more than 300 questions. Her stomach is still knotted up with too much coffee. But she smiles, a slow smile spreading big across her face.

Jack beams at her. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He sinks to his knees in front of her, squeezing her tight, and she buries her face into his neck. God, she'd been a wreck for weeks. And now? Now it's _over_. It was _fine_. He said it would be, and it was. "Thank you for believing in me."

* * *

**Aug. 15, 1994**

The traditional first-anniversary gift is paper, which is kind of convenient considering Jack's raise doesn't kick in for a couple more weeks. He gives her an e.e. cummings compilation, a new one, just out this winter, 100 Selected Poems, and she flips through them while they wait for the babysitter, smiling.

_if(touched by love's own secret)we,like homing_  
_through welcoming sweet miracles of air_  
_(and joyfully all truths of wing resuming)_  
_selves,into infinite tomorrow steer_

_-souls under whom flow(mountain valley forest)_  
_a million wheres which never may become_  
_one(wholly strange;familiar wholly)dearest_  
_more than reality of more than dream-_

_how should contented fools of fact envision_  
_the mystery of freedom?yet,among_  
_their loud exactitudes of imprecision,_  
_you'll(silently alighting)and i'll sing_

_while at us very deafly a most stares_  
_colossal hoax of clocks and calendars_

"It doesn't exactly make sense, huh?" He's looking over her shoulder.

"That's what's so beautiful about it sometimes. It's perfect, thank you."

She slides Jack's gift out from under the couch then, hands it over. It's not quite paper, but it's photo paper matted and framed all the same, and for some reason lately Rachel's photography skills have gone through the roof, and she's been using the spare bedroom in their Flagstaff house as a darkroom.

As a favor for Juliet, she'd created this from the negative, a picture of Juliet and Jack with a very tiny David in the hospital. David's maybe half an hour old, his features squashed and blotchy, a tiny cap on his head, his little fingers rubbery, his hands clutched together. Juliet looks like hell, her face swollen, dark circles under her eyes, but the black-and-white mitigates it somewhat; Jack, on the other hand, looks terrified in the photo, and Rachel's new rendering doesn't really mitigate that at all.

All that doesn't really matter, though.

"Our first family photo," he marvels, shaking his head down at the picture.

She bumps his knee with hers. "Well, we didn't exactly know it yet."

Jack scootches forward, cupping her face in both his hands. "Happy anniversary."

The doorbell rings, but first he's kissing her.

* * *

**Aug. 29, 1994**

She's been standing in front of this mirror for a good five minutes, her heart racing in the best way possible. Anxious and proud and everything in between. She really has to do this? Today and almost every day for...(ever)? Her hands feel kind of sweaty just thinking about it. There's no way she's ready. She doesn't know enough; she can't possibly - across the room, the floor creaks; she turns slowly, butterflies in her stomach.

David points. "Like Daddy!"

Juliet steals another look in the mirror, and then David's right up against her, burying his face in her short white coat. She picks him up, holds him nearly upside down while he giggles. "Not quite like Daddy. It's shorter, see?" She wiggles with him as he laughs, grabbing at the hem.

Then Jack's at the door too, a wide smile splitting his face, holding out a stethoscope.

"Doctor," she acknowledges him, trying not to laugh.

He chuckles. "Almost-doctor."

She finally puts David down, straightens her coat. First day of rotations, and OK, she can do this. She can.

* * *

**Sept. 22, 1994**

Something keeps jostling her in her sleep, but she's so tired she's willing to fight against it. "Shut up!" Jack blurts, and against her will, Juliet opens her eyes into the milk-blue light of dawn in their bedroom. He's got all the covers, the sheets balled into his fists, his eyes tightly closed. Is she supposed to wake him up? He needs his sleep, but - she glances at his fists again, touches his wrist.

"Kate - promise me - "

Her stomach goes into knots. _Kate?_ Who the hell is that? She squeezes her eyes closed; who is that,_ some research assistant he's_- she forces her eyes open again. "Jack," she whispers.

"Turn it off," he orders, his voice deep and demanding, somewhere around the time he opens his eyes.

"Are you - " she says hoarsely.

He blinks. "Are you all right?"

"You were... talking in your sleep. Or having a bad dream, or..." _Or dreaming about some other woman._She can't remember how to look indifferent right now, and in the dim light, he notices, sitting up.

"You're not all right." He's gone from angry to confused to concerned in two seconds flat (and she doesn't know who this Kate is, but for at least a second in her mind, she wants to do something very stupid and rage-filled anyway). "What was I saying?"

"Who's Kate," Juliet spits out between gritted teeth, and maybe she's overreacting but something about this all - she doesn't know.

"What?" His nose crinkles up; his forehead furrows.

"Who. Is. Kate." She's gotten it back now, the expressionless stare, no way is she going to let him see her hurt, except she can feel the fury pouring out of her own eyes. _No one is ever doing this to me again._

"Kate? I... I have no idea." And that's the thing that gives her pause: He looks so genuinely baffled she actually starts to believe him. "What was I saying?"

"You said..." She struggles to remember. "Something about her promising you something, and then you said 'turn it off'."

His pauses, trying to remember. "Oh. Oh!" and starts to laugh.

_Yeah. Hilarious._She tilts her head, waiting.

"You know how our PA system went out earlier this week?"

In fact, she does. It had fizzled out Monday morning while she was autoclaving equipment, and everything's sounded like only static or whispers for the past three days. She nods.

"Well, they finally got it working again tonight, but some of the nurses didn't realize, and they were complaining about Dr. Gali. I ran up to them and told them to turn it off. One of the nurses is named Katie."

The hummingbird in her chest starts to calm. Doesn't she trust her husband? Has he ever given her a reason not to? She slides her left thumb over the backs of her rings, nodding too many times.

Jack slides close to her, gathers her up in his arms. She hesitates before resting her forehead against his collarbone, and can just tell by the way he holds her. What was she so afraid of, just now? It felt for a second like her whole world was crashing in. "I'm sorry," she whispers.

"Don't worry about it," he tells her.

* * *

**Oct. 16, 1994**

Jack's been sulking all damn day. Nothing's cheered him up, and she even made grilled cheese for old time's sake. Hell, she'd even stuck in those frilly-topped toothpicks in the tops, left over from a Labor Day barbecue. She drags him into bed when David goes down for his nap, and truth be told, they probably need a new boxspring, so they end up on the floor.

"Jesus," he gasps when it's over, and she giggles, curling up against him, still half on top of him.

"Forgotten about the baseball strike yet?"

He trails his fingers along her side. "It's just, this could have been their year."

"...We're getting a new boxspring this weekend."

* * *

**Dec. 27, 1994**

David's been grinning so hard all day, she'd be surprised if his face _weren't_ hurting by now. All the same, Jack got a pretty decent raise over the summer, enough for them to carve three days out of their Christmas visit to his parents' to spent down at Disneyland.

They go on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride twice, the tea cups three times. In a gift shop, Jack grabs a grownup-sized pair of mouse ears, plunks them onto Juliet's head.

Their son just laughs and laughs.

* * *

**February 23, 1995**

This has been the longest three minutes of her entire fucking life. At least in recent memory. He's sitting on the edge of the tub; she's on the closed toilet lid, the white plastic stick clammy in her right hand.

Jack looks at the clock, nods. "OK."

She can't even meet his eyes. Why hadn't she kept this to herself unless it was positive? But she couldn't. She just couldn't. She flips it over. Takes a second. "Oh, thank god," she breathes out.

He almost sags with relief. "Really?"

One line, not two. "Negative." She holds it out for Jack, who's looking decreasingly green as the seconds go by. He smiles at her; she flips the test stick into the garbage.

They stand, aiming for the door into the hall, but before she flicks the light off, he slides his arm around her waist.

"You know, things aren't always going to be like this."

"I know."

"Someday..."

She realizes what he's saying, and in spite of her still-racing heart, she smiles. "Someday," she echoes.

* * *

**April 19, 1995**

She feels like this already happened.

Or, that's not it, really, of course it's not, but somehow nonetheless, there's a sick sense of deja vu in her stomach. She's on spring break from school, and David is napping. Jack comes home mid-day, sometimes she gives up even trying to remember his schedules, and she's just frozen in front of the TV, watching rescue workers dig through the piles of steel and concrete that this morning were a building in Oklahoma City.

Earlier they'd carried out a tiny baby, and she remembers David being that tiny and -_ dear god._

Jack comes further into the room, dropping down onto the couch next to her, sliding an arm around her. "Terrible."

They watching silently for a little longer. "You know what's weird? My sister just started volunteering with the Red Cross last week. She called before, and there's a group going, so she's leaving later today."

Jack nods sadly, not really taking his eyes away from the TV. "Good timing, I guess. Well, bad timing, but... good timing."

Exactly.

* * *

**June 5, 1995**

DeGroot smiles at her as she drops her backpack behind her desk, takes the flimsy plastic lid off her coffee cup. "Did you have a nice birthday yesterday?"

"I - " Had she mentioned her birthday had been coming up this weekend? Or did he just remember it from her file? "Yes, thank you, it was really nice." _Except Monday is already turning out crazy, and I have to figure out when to find time to get a new student ID, since I must have lost it last week, and -_

"Twenty-five already, is it?"

OK, that's just weird... except, well, he knows she's a third-year, so... "Mm-hm." She smiles politely, hitting the power buttons on her computer and monitor.

DeGroot's just standing there, his thick fingers stuck in between a stack of manila folders. "You're sure you're not aging in reverse or anything, right?" He grins big at that, like he's making a joke.

"Um." She smiles too, a close-lipped smile, though. _Back off and let me get my work done, you bearded freako._ "Nope. Just... just regular."

"Oh. Well. I, uh - " He gestures to an unused desk, and she realizes there's a big white box there. "I brought in some muffins and OJ, for your birthday. You can just help yourself whenever. The OJ's in the fridge."

"Oh. Oh! Thanks. That's... really nice of you."

"No problem. When everyone else comes through, just let them know. Should be plenty for everyone. Except Phil." He winks at her conspiratorially then, and she actually laughs.

And fortunately, he backs off not long after that, retreating to his office for most of her shift. She helps herself to a banana nut muffin, but bypasses the mini-fridge, instead filling a plastic cup from their water cooler.

By the time she's packing up her work, DeGroot's back, holding up a small rectangular piece of plastic. Her missing student ID! "Sorry, forgot to tell you before - found this in the break room last week."

She reaches out for it gratefully. Muffins for her birthday, her missing ID. _See, he's not so bad._ Socially awkward, maybe, but his heart's in the right place. "Thank you so much. I was wondering where that had gone." She smiles down at her card, her own face looking back up at her, her hair much longer, her eyes big and nervous.

He nods down at the image. "Taken your first year, I presume?"

"That's right."

"Yeah, you do... you do look a bit younger," he says thoughtfully.

_That's because... people tend to get older as time passes?_ Ugh, he just had to come back and say something weird. "Well, have a great rest of your day!" she says brightly, slipping her ID into her pocket. "Bye!"

* * *

**July 1, 1995**

"I made chief resident."

She looks up from her textbook; Jack is beaming at her and he hasn't even closed the front door yet. Juliet closes her book and grins. "Of course you did."

* * *

**Aug. 15, 1995**

Quiet fills up the house. Juliet's spent the night ironing clothes for her summer lab job, reading e.e. cummings, making a veggie lasagne she can cut into pieces and freeze. And Jack? Jack is working.

"Happy anniversary," she says into the empty room.

* * *

**Sept. 4, 1995**

"You don't like it so much, then leave!" she finally yells, because there's nothing near enough she can throw, and she's sick of this, of course he's had no fucking sleep, but you know what, she's had no fucking sleep either and somehow she still manages to handle this household. The least she could hope for would be a little help; she's not some fucking '50s housewife who stays home all day and bakes muffins.

His nostrils flare, he's panting with anger, but much to her surprise, he turns around, slams the bedroom door behind him. A minute later the front door slams too.

"FUCK!" she screams at the empty room, for once letting herself forget about David.

She's in the kitchen, three shots into a still-very-full bottle of rum when suddenly he's filling the doorway, and she wishes she'd had a warning to wipe the tears off her face.

Jack approaches slowly, like any second she's going to reach out and electrocute him. "I'm not going anywhere," he says instead.

She swallows a sob, staring down at the bottle. "Good," she whispers.

* * *

**Sept. 22, 1995**

Juliet finds Jack at one of the the nurses' station on his floor, flipping through a chart. He looks up at her in her scrubs.

"Doctor," she says.

"Almost-doctor," he returns. "What brings you to my neck of the woods? Aren't you still on OB this week?"

"I'm... on break right now." She can't keep up the facade any longer, and her face bursts into a wild grin.

He laughs, just looking at her face. "What... is going on with you?"

Juliet stands up straighter, just to tell him. "I just delivered my first baby."

His mouth drops in pleasure and surprise as the clipboard clunks onto the counter. "You're kidding!"

"Nope. Attending asked the mother if she minded, she was obviously feeling charitable, annnnd... I. Delivered. A. Baby!" She would dance right now if she could; it was like remembering David being born all over again. Except now she got to help bring that to someone else.

Jack looks... proud of her, she decides, and she can tell he'd be hugging her if he wasn't at work right now. "How was it?" he asks instead.

"It was..." He's delivered babies too, not in med school, but during the very early part of his residency. Maybe it's not the same for him, though. "It was like... changing the whole world for someone."

* * *

**Oct. 15, 1995**

"But why's it called the Green Monster?"

_Because it's green_ isn't going to be a good enough answer, especially not in the middle of Fenway Park. She smirks at Jack, leans back against her seat. _I'm sitting this one out._

The Red Sox are jogging out toward the field, the dreaded Yankees ambling in.

Jack points to the giant green wall. "See how high it is? That makes it really tough to hit a home run, because unless it's really, really high, it bounces off. So a lot of times those hits that _would_ be home runs somewhere else just turn into doubles, it's called a wall-ball double, and..."

Here, he's lost David.

"But it's not a real monster, right?"

"No, it's not a real monster," he chuckles.

"Because monsters aren't real, Mommy said, right?"

Jack's eyes get kind of cloudy for a minute. (Did Jack have bad dreams when he was a kid? She makes a mental note to ask him later.) "That's right," he finally says. "Monsters aren't real. Now pay close attention, because these guys, in the gray? We don't want them to get any good hits, right?"

David shakes his head obediently. "Uh uh."

"And who's the greatest team in history?"

"The Dodgers."

There's total silence among the three of them for a second (and she hopes none of the rabid Sox fans they're surrounded by are hearing this). Jack's eyebrows are so high, they're practically in his hair, and then Juliet bursts out laughing.

Jack's mouth gapes open. David looks between them like he has no actual horse in this race.

"I - you - you _brainwashed_ him!"

She keeps giggling. She can't help it, and sure enough, Jack's starting to laugh now, too, even as he points to the field. "Don't believe her, David. The Boston Red Sox. The Boston Red Sox. This could be their year."

* * *

**Jan. 8, 1996**

Their kitchen table is covered with unwrapped presents, David's happy little face glowing as he inspects his police car with, god help them, a real siren. Her baby - her _baby_ - is five. How is that even possible?

"You have one more present," Jack tells him, and David sits up straighter in the chair she'd decorated with balloons and streamers, just like her mom had always done with her and Rachel's chairs on their birthdays.

"It isn't the kind that comes in a box, though," she adds, and she and Jack share a glance. "There's a nice lady named Marie, and on Wednesdays she's going to show you how to play the piano."

David looks more baffled than excited. "Really?"

She's nodding. "Only if you want." But what if he's too young, he's going to feel pressured but it's just, he's always seemed so happy hitting the keys on Margo and Christian's piano, and his little plastic piano is the only baby toy they haven't given away at this point. And, frankly, Wednesdays they've been having an issue transferring him from preschool to after-school care, but Marie had said she could pick him up. Oh god, yeah, what were they thinking? This makes them terrible parents. Couching it like a present. Well, it's supposed to be, but still -

All throughout her worrying, though, he's twisting his mouth, considering. "I think, I think I _do_ want to."

* * *

**March 31, 1996**

"Stupid hair."

_Liar._ "Sit still."

"What time is it?"

"Rachel, we're fine." Juliet's got her hands full, and she doesn't need her sister sliding around on her at this particular moment.

"I didn't ask if we were fine. I asked what _time_ is it."

"One-thirty."

Rachel lets out a shaky sigh. "Jesus."

"We have an hour, still." They've spent a good 45 minutes alone on Rachel's hair; these days it seems like she has acres of it. Juliet twists the last piece into place, secures it with a bobby pin. They both stare into the mirror.

"Shit. I think I want to wear it down," Rachel says slowly.

Juliet looks at all her work, all about to be undone. Thinks about it all, thinks about how she should probably be annoyed. Thinks about how she is not. (They can undo this. Isn't that what... who was that? Someone wanted her to undo something, once upon a time.)

She shakes off the thought. "I think I can understand that."

Rachel reaches up, clawing at the pins; together they pull them all out; her hair slides down her back. Rachel's white dress is waiting in the closet.

* * *

**May 6, 1996**

There's a white bakery box on the spare desk when she gets into work Monday morning - her last Monday morning in this weird little office with the hexagonal window panes. Funny, now that she's suffered(?) through all four years here, she's almost a little sad she's not going to have any more good DeGroot stories to take home to Jack.

Almost.

DeGroot comes out of the back as she's turning on her computer. "Happy last Monday!" he trills.

"I... seriously, I can't believe it," she admits to him, surprised at the honesty of her own vocal relief. Four years of med school? Definitely the hardest thing she'd ever done. Actually, OK, not really. In the top five, though, for sure.

"Congratulations. You should be proud. Now, I'm taking you and the whole department out for lunch on Friday to celebrate, but in the meantime, you know the drill, muffins on the desk, and here, I got the fresh-squeezed orange juice this time."

She opens her mouth to object, but he's already bending down to the mini-fridge and pulling out to plastic cups with lids. OK, fine, she can dump it in a plant or something when he's not around.

When DeGroot's finally back in his office, her muffin half-eaten, she grabs a mug from the shelf, heads down the hall to the water cooler, staring in dismay at the empty bottle. Fine, fine. She turns toward the corner with the potted plant, where they keep extra jugs. All empty. Ugh! Why hadn't she just admitted she didn't like orange juice? She could fill her cup with water from the bathroom sink, but that seems gross.

She settles down with her typing, taking small sips of juice because it's still better than nothing. Four years though, how's it even possible? Finals in a week and a half, but she's actually feeling good about them, and then graduation, and Rachel and Niall are coming, of course, and her father and Stephanie.

Rachel's bringing her good camera because she really wants to re-create the photo she'd taken the morning of Juliet's UCLA graduation. Baby David standing on the couch, pointing and laughing at Juliet in her cap and gown.

And hey, even Tahlia had sent her a long cheery email last week from CalTech, despite her own final exams looming large.

The only problem, the one Juliet keeps trying to ignore, is... the issue of her internship, and Matching Day, despite... despite... it's just, she's worried because... because the internships here in Ann Arbor... she stifles a yawn. Then, she doesn't even try to stop the next one, and it goes on and on, a long series of yawns, and it's just... this chair is so cozy, and maybe she could just... take a little nap, and... she looks at the glass of orange juice on the desk... and...


	63. Dharma Beer Company

**This was a hard chapter to write, and for once I don't mean because I had writer's block or it was challenging. I meant hard psychologically. Hoo boy!**

**Although I do generally like leaving you all in suspense (yes! I admit it!), I actually didn't want to do it here. So I'll be publishing two chapters very, very close together. The next chapter could go out as early as tomorrow, but it should be no longer than two or three days, since the next one is almost done at this point.**

**Hope everyone is having a great holiday season.**

* * *

_Smile pretty and watch your back._

Ani DiFranco, "Every State Line"

* * *

"That ain't your real last name, is it?"

She looks up from the clipboard. "Not technically."

"Cryptic." He leans over her, invading her space. "They do a course on evasiveness at the University of New Otherton?"

In no particular order, here are the things she doesn't feel like discussing today, or most days: Kate, Jack, the University of New Otherton, and Edmund Burke. What she finally comes up with is, "It's not my legal name, no."

"'Cause I'm just sayin', you don't want them to find you out in about... what, twenty-seven years, is all."

This isn't... this isn't how they found her, is it? Or will find her? The clipboard goes heavy in her hand.

"Well," Juliet finally says. Trying to sound calm and brave, like she's not questioning her decision to stay, not in the least. (A lie that doesn't quite work, not even in her own head.) "Whatever happened, happened, right?"

"Jury's still out on that one." James cracks open a beer, smirks at the way she winces when he hefts his feet onto the coffee table. "Ain't even your furniture, blondie. Ain't gonna be yours for twenty-seven years."

This wasn't even her house before. Or, well, it won't be. However that works. She chooses not to respond, gazing down at the clipboard again. God, these Dharma applications are weirdly invasive. Who the hell cares about her blood type, whether her parents are still alive, how they died. Who the hell cares where (or whether) she graduated from high school, college. Next page, for all she knows, they could be demanding her shoe size.

_N/A,_ she writes for college, sighing inwardly. _D.O.B. 6/4/40,_ sure, why not? _Portland, Maine,_ she writes for place of origin. Her smirk is more of a grimace, really.

At least she gets to go back to Carlson.

"You take your aptitude test yet? 'Cause you should prolly dumb yourself down." He leans back against the scratchy plaid couch smugly. "Not all of us are cracked up for armed patrols and hostage negotiation."

She clicks her Dharma-branded pen. "James, I don't think they're going to look at my test scores and then look at my lack of college credentials and say, 'Gee, why don't you cut open our people or study electromagnetism'?"

He's still leaning back, and his shirt has pulled up, just a little. She forces her eyes away from the thin strip of tan stomach revealed.

"Well, crazier fuckin' things've happened on this rock, you can't deny that."

No, she sure can't. Possibly the craziest thing of all? The two weeks were up two weeks ago. Since then she's been floating around, waiting for a John Locke she really doesn't think is ever coming back. (No one is going to come here and save her.) She raises her eyes from the application on her lap.

"Is there any more beer?"

He flashes his dimples at her, waggles his eyebrows in the direction of her chest. "Undo just one more button and I'll even get it for ya myself."

She stands, trying not to laugh. But seriously? She should laugh, goddamnit. This whole thing is ridiculous, and it's time for some levity. Levity and beer. "Enjoy the view while you can, sicko. I'm sure they'll have me in a jumpsuit this time next week."

James calls after her as she heads to the kitchen: "All the more reason I gotta get it now!"

Her smile fades in the kitchen, though. There's a wild yellow daisy in a plastic cup on the counter. Why? Because the little-girl version of Charlotte picked it for her today.

(She wonders how long it'll last in a place like this.)

* * *

God, these Dharma couches are so uncomfortable. Scratchy and straight-backed, no give to the cushions. Every time she falls asleep out in the living room when James is working an overnight and can't kiss her awake, she ends up with a stuff neck, and...

Juliet stretches out, her right ankle clonking into the wooden arm of the sofa. She groans. What, did they have a party last night? She can't even remember, must've been a hell of a bash, because she feels insanely hungover. As long as Miles didn't dance around with a lampshade on his head this time.

Time passes. She's aware of that, but still, she's half-asleep, then three-quarters awake, then mostly sleeping again, who knows. She keeps listening, though, on and off, because there's supposed to be another person in this little house, right, or maybe even another one who stays here sometimes, and... _mmm, sleep..._

No. No one else is here. Where is she? She opens her eyes.

The first thing she sees is a pale yellow ceiling. She wrinkles her face up, thinking, but that causes her eyes to close, and then there's a brief trip back to sleep, and then, there's that pale yellow ceiling again.

Where is there a pale yellow ceiling? Her and Jack have a bedroom, and that bedroom has a ceiling all right, but that ceiling is white.

Juliet suddenly sits up too fast, her head lolling backward before she can stop it. She's feeling so woozy, like she's drunk, but she blinks a couple of times, and the room comes into focus.

Where the hell is she?

Someone's small yellow living room, window shades pulled down, and wow, whoever lives here hasn't seen a copy of a home decorating magazine in decades. The couch she's sitting on is scratchy and plaid, all the wooden furniture dark and utilitarian; even the pictures on the walls look like something that her grandma would have clipped out of a nature-themed calendar back before she was born.

The window shades are down.

Even as she takes this all in, her addled brain is trying to remember: What was she doing last night? Did she go to some kind of party? Without Jack? She doesn't recall getting a sitter. She doesn't recall _any_ party, actually. It was a... Monday, yesterday? The last thing she remembers...

The last thing she remembers is being at work and... _shit!_ Had she passed out at work? How embarrassing. But then, what is this place? It's certainly not Student Health. It really does look like someone's living room.

Juliet swings her legs onto the floor, stands up shakily, pausing to grab the arm of the sofa for balance. Her feet are bare, her sandals on the floor next to them. "Hello?" she tries to call out, only her voice is hoarse.

(It's so quiet in here.)

There's a tiny little kitchen around the corner from the living room. On the other side of the house(? ...apartment? all the shades are down), there's a single bedroom with a double bed. Dark wood, white blankets. The closet's empty except for four dark blue jumpsuits, like the kind a mechanic would wear, and three pairs of work boots on the floor, and her stomach turns over.

_I'm in some strange man's house!_

She feels like she's going to be sick; she doesn't know what happened but she's racing through the house now, lunging for the front door - and it's, it's, it's locked, and she fumbles at the doorknob, _there, it should be unlocked now,_ but, still locked, _oh my god oh my god oh my god,_ she's fiddling with it, back and forth, back and forth, and then she stumbles across the room, to the first window, snapping back the shade and -

Nothing but a cinderblock wall, and that's when she screams.

_Phone there has to be a phone somewhere I can't breathe fast enough there is no phone in this room not on the end tables not in the wall, but the kitchen there has to be no no no no phone on the wall in there, or the bedroom or the bathroom or maybe even the closet inside somewhere, whose house is this, someone's locked me in here please god or the universe or Mom are you there oh god oh god oh god no no no no._

She's checking all the windows, more cinderblock behind the shades, she's checked them all, all eight of them, and the entire time now she's been screaming at the top of her lungs, despite the hoarseness, "PLEASE, PLEASE, CAN ANYONE HEAR ME, PLEASE, HELP ME - "

- when there's a noise and it's the doorknob and_ oh no, oh no, oh no,_ and this is her chance, she just has to storm the door and - but she's only halfway across the room before - before - BEFORE GERALD DEGROOT COMES THROUGH THE DOORS AND _OH MY GOD_ and she stops dead in her tracks.

He closes the door behind him. "Oh good, you're up."

There's a moment when she doesn't know what to say or do, like maybe she passed out at work and for some reason he thought he'd bring her to his house, only for some reason THERE ARE NO WINDOWS AND NO PHONE AND - she advances on him now, and obviously he outweighs her, but she's taller and - "Where are we," she spits out.

DeGroot looks concerned, not menacing like she'd been fearing. "We, ah, we had to take a little break from our regularly scheduled programming."

_Don't try to be funny THIS IS NOT FUCKING FUNNY._ "I asked where we are."

"We are in... a bit of a vacation home. I know, the view leaves something to be desired." He smiles wryly, nodding in the direction of the nearest mindfuck of a window.

Her next words sound so pathetic she can't even believe they're coming out of her mouth. "Can I leave?"

He shakes his head. "Not yet, I'm afraid."

Oh god, she's going to be sick. She struggles to control her breathing, trying not to think about David or Jack or she'll hyperventilate or vomit. "What do you want?" she asks, because she's not going to lie to herself; she will give this bastard anything if it means she gets to go home in one piece.

DeGroot, for his part, seems pleased by how fast she's moving this along. "Well... I want you to remember, of course."

"Remember what?"

He chuckles. "Why don't you go get changed first?"

She bites down hard, her teeth grinding together. "I am not changing out of my clothes."

DeGroot sighs heavily. "Why don't we listen to some records, then?"

Is this how it happens? A young woman disappears, and no one knows what happens to her, and it's because of psychos like this with walled-up living rooms? "Tell me what I can do so I can go home."

"I just... I need some answers." They're still standing near the door, but now he moves inward, walking toward the kitchen.

Only, he hadn't locked the door, had be? Juliet visually measures his distance from her, then dives for the doorknob, only, _no no no NO NO NO_, it's locked.

"Locks when it's closed. Can only unlock it with the key."

She closes her eyes, trying to hold back tears. Both her hands are still on the door.

"Come on. Have a drink."

What else is she supposed to do? Numbly, she opens her eyes. Follows him.

In the kitchen, he cracks open a beer from a plain white can with black lettering. She tilts her head, reading it. Whatever this Dharma beer company is, they could stand to invest some extra money in package design. Not that that really matters right now.

"Anything yet?" he asks.

"What... I... I don't know what you mean?"

He sighs. "Can I interest you in a beer?"

_I'm starting to think I shouldn't accept drinks from you._ "Is the water from the sink safe to drink?"

DeGroot nods. "Just let it run for awhile." He opens a cabinet, hands her a plastic cup.

She angles away from the sink, watching him, not turning her back as the water fills, gulping down the entire thing, then filling it up again. "What did you give me in that juice?"

"Just a run-of-the-mill sedative. You should feel completely back to normal in no more than a few hours." He sits at the table. She stays where she is. "Sit down," he says, not unkindly.

"I'd rather stand."

His face clouds. "I've gone to a lot of trouble and expense for this. More than you could ever realize. Sit. Down."

A chill runs through her bones, and she sits. What does he mean, more than she could...? She flashes back to that weirdly invasive phone interview four years ago. _Oh, god. Oh no._ She can't look at him. She can't. Her mind keeps trying to go places she doesn't want it to, and... all this time? Has he been planning this ALL THIS TIME?

His hand slides across the table, reaching out for hers and she jerks back, scrambling upward, knocking over her chair. _Don't fucking touch me,_ she wants to say, biting it back because, not even five minutes ago, hadn't she offered him anything, ANYthing, if he'd let her leave?

(She feels sick. She's sickening herself, even.)

DeGroot had flinched when her chair fell, but he makes no effort to rise from the table. "Please, I'm sorry, don't get the wrong idea. I was trying to comfort you."

"You were trying to comfort me?" she spits. "Why don't we just skip the part where you pretend to be righteous."

"How old are you, Juliet?"

Still standing, she stares at him. "Twenty-five." She'll be twenty-six next month. If, if, if she's still... Her knees go weak.

"And yet twenty years ago, you were in your mid to late thirties." He shakes his head in disbelief. "How does that even work? Were you just born later this time?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"But... you're the one who did this, aren't you? Started it over. You must have. You and your friends, at the Swan site. We had witnesses, you know." He purses his lips. "At least until they had to run for their lives."

The... Swan... site? She feels a little dizzy again now, but... It must be the sedative. That's it. He's crazy. She's going to be kept away from her home, for god knows how long _(maybe forever oh god don't think that stop it STOP IT)_, by a lonely, crazy man.

"My husband will find me," she warns him, trying to believe it herself.

DeGroot looks down at his beer can, then back up at her. "Have you ever thought about a place where you couldn't be found?"

"Is that... some sort of riddle?" (No one is going to come here and save her.)

He shakes is head, standing. "I'm sorry to do this to you, but we're not getting anywhere right now. I'm going to have to leave you here to think, on your own." From his pocket emerges something shaped like a boxcutter, only with two dull prongs instead of a blade. "Have you ever seen one of these? Do you know what this is?"

She's afraid either way. Finally she shakes her head.

"This is a taser. It can shock people from a distance of several feet or greater. You've probably heard about the police using them sometimes. The dial can be adjusted for different intensities, and I hear it's extremely painful." He holds it up. "As you can see, the level on this particular device is set rather high. I'm sorry to do this, Juliet, but I'll need you to stand in the living room, where I can see you, until I leave. If you make any moves to hurt me, I'm afraid I will have to use it. The same applies for when I come back. I don't want to hurt you, unless you leave me no choice. I have a hard time trusting Hostiles, in any reality. Do you understand?"

Juliet forces herself to nod.

His expression softens somewhat. "Good. Now, there are, as I mentioned, records in the living room, and some books as well, and plenty of food in the kitchen. The bathroom is stocked with everything you'll need, and there are fresh jumpsuits in the bedroom closet. Please don't panic. Think about the Dharma Initiative." (What, the beer company?) "Try to remember your... your people, whatever you called your tribe. Keep calm, and take care of yourself, and I'll be back after you have some time."

There is not one single thought going through her head. They are not allowed to come in at all.

"So, as we discussed, please follow me to the living room, and stand right near the kitchen entrance. That's right."

He's inching away now, backing toward the door, and she does what she's told, an animal in a cage.

"Good girl. That's right." The door is open now, and she can't see anything beyond it but darkness, and there's no fresh air. Then he's gone, the door is closed, and she's on the floor, shaking so hard she can't even believe it.

* * *

She wonders what Jack and David are doing right now.

No, no, she doesn't.

Because she can't think about that right now, she searches the house (apartment?) for clues to what he wants, clues to where she is, for anything that could be used as a weapon. The plates and cups are all plastic, and the knives and forks and spoons as well. The stovetop has electric coils, no burner to hit him with.

Inside the refrigerator there's yogurt and sliced turkey and ham and cheese, milk and juice boxes. On the counter there's a box of Dharma-O's, a loaf of bread, a jumble of bananas, and two mangos.

Why would he care that she's fed?

The bathroom cabinet is stocked with shampoo, conditioner and toothpaste, all in the same white packages with black lettering and that trademark octagon. OK, so Dharma isn't a beer company. Maybe a discount store, like Walmart, that has its own brand?

She unwraps a toothbrush from its package. In prison, don't they carve the edge down until it's almost as sharp as a knife? How do they do that? How long would it take? It's not like she can stab him with a goddamn banana.

Then the reality of her situation crashes into her again, and she can't breathe, feeling way way way too vulnerable in this tiny bathroom, and she's bolting across the hall, into the bedroom, only that door doesn't lock anyway.

She forces herself to calm down. The jumpsuits look all the same, she checks for a label inside, only there's no brand there, just "S - women's - tall." She pulls back to look at the outside again, and _oh no oh no oh no,_ they have her name on them, and underneath, "Motor Pool."

What the fuck is going on here? She runs back out into the living room (apparently she can't walk in this house, can only run) and she's still clutching that stupid toothbrush like it's supposed to do fucking anything for her.

She decides to scream for awhile, because maybe someone will be able to hear her, but after a few minutes of that, her throat is raw, and no one is coming for her.

She ends up on the floor, her back against the couch, facing the door. Grinding the toothbrush against the edge of the coffee table. Hey, at least it's something. She wonders who read David his story tonight, if he got one. Right now his favorite is "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish," and he has most of it memorized, but she's pretty sure he can read some of the words.

Their trip to Disneyland is one of her favorite memories. Three days, just the three of them, staying in the Disneyland Hotel right near the park. Remembering dotting sunscreen along David's cheeks, on the tip of his nose, and Jack laughing at her for being the one to get sunburned. How sleepy David was by the end of each day, and they only managed to catch the fireworks on the very last night. Jack had slipped his arm around her, kissing her on the temple, and David had his hands over his ears, but kept declaring each of the fireworks was "the best ever," and - and then reality clarifies itself in front of her, all around her, and she's still sitting here in this dressed-up cage, facing the door, trying to make a weapon out of a toothbrush.

That's when she gets to her knees and vomits on the floor.

* * *

Somewhere around 1 o'clock (a.m.? p.m.? Because yes, this fucked-up place actually has a clock on the wall so she can measure how insane she's going by the minute except it's not digital AND THERE ARE NO FUCKING WINDOWS), she decides on a new tactic: Step on the toothbrush, pull it back until it snaps.

Only she's wearing flimsy sandals, and she remembers those workboots in the closet.

She flips on the light in the bedroom, averting her eyes from the bed (no fucking way she is sleeping in that thing). Those three pairs of tan boots are lined up in the floor, waiting. The first one is heavy in her hands. She flips it over. 9, the sole says. She drops it to the floor, picks up one from each of the other two pairs. 10. 11.

_He's been looking at my feet_, she thinks wildly, _he's been trying to guess_, and it's almost enough to keep her from putting them on, but shakily she reaches into the dresser, takes out a pair of socks, eases her feet down into the 10s.

Back out in the living room (she feels safest in here; she can see the door), she kneels down, stepping on just the tip of the toothbrush's handle. Pulls it back, back, back until it snaps, and then she's staring in dismay at the two pieces. Stupid stupid stupid, they're each only a couple inches long, he'll tase her way before she can get to him with this, and anyway, she's wearing a tank top, no long sleeves to hide it in, and she feels like crying, but she can't let herself.

Juliet walks through the house once more. Twice more.

The edge of an aluminum can? But she'd have to figure out how to cut it in half, and anyway, it'll still be too short. She rubs her eyes.

The residue from that fucking sedative has given her an awful headache. And... a nosebleed? She's starting to feel sick again, has to hold a tissue against her face for awhile. Finally she leans up against the door, all the lights still on, and tries to sleep.

* * *

Juliet wakes up at 6 (a.m.? p.m.?) and there's nothing to do, no more makeshift weapons she can think of, and there's nothing good to read here, just a stack of old magazines, Popular Mechanic, Car & Driver, that kind of crap. A couple of issues of Time going all the way back to the '70s, for god's sakes. The single book in this place is "Automotive Repair, Made Easy for Beginners."

At 8 (a.m.? p.m.?), she pours some Dharma-O's into a plastic bowl, forces herself to eat. Keeping her strength up. Rachel used to never want to eat, back when she was sick, and that would only make her feel sicker.

Rachel. Rachel's dreams, the ones she used to have. The ones where Juliet went away, or died, and now the fucking cereal tastes like ashes in her mouth, cold fear churning through her stomach.

She stands abruptly, looking around the kitchen for more ideas, but her eyes settle on the cheery-looking tile backsplash behind the sink, and - she used to have a kitchen that looked like this? Juliet pauses, trying to think.

No. No, she didn't. She's been trapped here too long already, that's the problem, two-thirds of a day now at least, maybe longer depending on how long she was unconscious, and then there's the sound of a door unlocking, and she freezes.

"Juliet? You all right?" DeGroot's voice rings out. "I want you to be standing where I can see you."

"Yeah," she croaks, starting to shake. She shouldn't have gone to med school. She could have spent all that extra time with David.

There's the sound of the door closing behind him, and then he calls out, "I'm coming into the kitchen. Don't make any sudden moves, please."

Juliet stands there, stockstill like a rabbit, and he's peeking around the corner, frowning.

"You don't look so good."

"What do you think I'd look like?"

His expression softens. "I'm sorry. It's just - we were running out of time, what with you about to graduate. You can go home as soon as we get this all straightened out, I promise. Even though you were a Hostile. It's just - I have some concerns about the space-time continuum."

"And what do you want me to do about that," she asks flatly.

"Did anything... look familiar? Ring any bells?"

Her eyes flicker back to the tiles behind the sink. "What do you mean, look familiar?" She should have put the broken toothbrush in her pocket. It would be short enough to hide. Only she would have to really, really hurt him to get the key away and still have enough time to get to the door. Maybe she'd have to try to actually kill him. Could she really kill a man with just a piece of broken plastic, though? She stares at his neck, trying to make out the faint pulse of his jugular vein. There's no glass anywhere in this place.

No, no, she should try to storm him at the door. Shouldn't she? it would be easier.

"Something that strikes you as out of the ordinary," he's saying now. "Something you think you remember, but can't determine from where."

She chews on the inside of her lip. The blood is flowing through his jugular vein, right at this second. Why had she left the toothbrush under the couch? What if she doesn't get another chance?

He points down at her feet. "The workboots, perhaps?"

The workboots? Well, they kind of remind her of... She shakes her head. He's clouding up her mind with unimportant things.

"Anything?" he prompts.

She thinks of the kitchen tiles again, but no. No, she is not playing some weird game with him. Except she wants to go home, doesn't she? What if she just played along? He'd have to react to that most favorably than being stabbed. "Yeah. The boots."

He looks pleased. "And what about them? Could you imagine why you might want to wear them?"

"I..." What does he want to hear? Why is he acting so gentle, so pleasant? "I used to have a pair of hiking boots that my mom bought me. Before we went to visit my sister at college. I wore them for years. But I finally got rid of them. They were falling apart."

DeGroot practically sags with disappointment. "I'd like you to think about the Swan site. And why you were known to be with LaFleur, but then that janitor came, and - he operated on the boy with you. He was a doctor. That's the one you're with this time. The janitor."

Juliet's mind unspools to Niall's old janitor job, at the planetarium, back when they would sit outside and he would tell her the names of constellations. What boy? And LaFleur? Like the name of DeGroot's super-top-secret project?

"My husband is a doctor," she reminds him, guarded.

"Of course he is. He was the first time, too. He clearly must have been. Even working with the Hostiles as he was then."

"Then, when?"

"1977."

She counts back quickly. "Jack was... eleven in 1977."

DeGroot shakes his head slowly, calmly, and she feels her anger rising in response. She just stares at him though, unsure of what she's supposed to say to make this situation any better. Maybe she can give him enough rope to hang himself with.

He sighs. "It would be easier with all the files we had, of course. And the photographs, and the surveillance video. Unfortunately, none of that exists, this time around."

This time around? He keeps saying things like that. She feels a little woozy. Maybe she should have tried to sleep more.

Giving her a wide berth, DeGroot moves toward the sink, reaching into the cabinet for one of those plastic cups. He fills it with water, staring at her as he sips. (She hates him.) He swallows. (She wants to kill him.) "I just need to know what exactly you did."

"I didn't do anything," she insists.

He nods. "But you did."

That's it. She's had enough, and she advances on him now, forgetting about the taser, and she swats the fucking plastic cup out OUT OF HIS FUCKING HAND with all the force she has in her.

"YOU ARE A LIAR!" she screams in his face, shaking with anger as the water goes arcing over the floor, the cup skittering across the linoleum. "YOU'RE LYING TO ME!"

His eyes go big, saucer-like, and he begins shaking his head rapidly. "No, Juliet, I am telling you the truth!"

"I just want to go home, Dr. DeGroot. Please. Please just. Let. Me. Go. Home." Her anger is rapidly being eclipsed by grief and fear, her eyes flooding even though there is no way, no FUCKING way, she is letting herself think about David, or Jack, or Rachel. But there, she just did, and her face contorts, and then she's just fucking crying, right there in front of him. Pathetic.

Clearly he has no fucking clue what he's supposed to do, staring up at her with his mouth half open. He doesn't seem mean or angry or threatening, and she doesn't even know what that's supposed to mean, exactly.

"Please just let me go home," she whimpers, only she's sobbing and at first she's not even sure whether he hears her.

But then: "No," he says softly, and turns, and leaves.

There's the hollow sound of the door closing behind him, and then it's just her, in this terrifying yellow box, with - she's just noticed - a wild yellow daisy sitting in a plastic cup on the counter.

She wonders how long it'll last in a place like this. (She could wonder the same thing about herself, but she won't.)

Juliet bends down, folding practically in half, and presses her face against the low counter, letting herself cry, because - this place is already starting to feel like she's lived here for years.


	64. A Colossal Hoax of Clocks and Calendars

_I did not design this game; _  
_I did not name the stakes.  
I just happen to like apples_  
_ and I am not afraid of snakes._

- Ani DiFranco, "Adam and Eve"

* * *

A new fear takes over, because he doesn't come back for the rest of the day. Juliet sleeps up against the front door again, one half of the broken toothbrush underneath her leg. And all the next day? He doesn't come back then, either.

What if he never comes back? And she runs out of food, or there's a fire, or the water gets shut off - she tries not to think about all that, standing in the kitchen. It's her third full day here. May 8. No, May 9. Well, maybe she really doesn't know, because she initially woke up at 8 o'clock that first day, and maybe the clock meant 8 a.m., not p.m., in which case...

She tries to focus. It's not easy.

If she's careful, she could easily make this food last for two weeks, or three. An apple for breakfast, half a sandwich for lunch. Not like she can go out hunting or expect food to drop out of the sky, after all.

She puts half the loaf in the freezer, the other half in the fridge. Cut down on the potential for mold. Maybe she could take apart the back of the fridge, use that as some kind of weapon, if she could manage to take it off without electrocuting herself. For now she washes her cup and plate from this morning (evening?). They're disposable but - what's she going to do otherwise, fire up the record player and spin some records by groovy '70s bands? Half the albums are by some band she's never heard of, Geronimo something. She and Jack doesn't even have a record player anymore.

Jack. Jack is (was?) a janitor, DeGroot had said. Yeah, right. What is he talking about? He's crazy. Unhinged. Why hadn't she listened to her gut? Was he planning this the whole time? He'd interviewed her for med school, what if he'd convinced them to take her, convinced them to offer her the scholarship so she would -

She forces herself to stop. Scrubs harder at the rim of the plastic cup than is at all necessary.  
It's just, Jack and Rachel and everyone, do they think she's -

She's been scrubbing at this one cup for longer than she can even understand at this point, her hands gone red under the water, and (and she and Jack were under water one time and - and they fought and - ) and obviously she's going crazy, but she's not going to stand in the middle of the living room while he's unlocking the door next time. She's going to fight. She's going to get out of here. She's going to go home.

* * *

The answer is so simple and awful, she's humiliated it took her this long to think of it. Then again, he obviously hadn't considered it himself, either.

The lid of the toilet tank is huge and heavy and, if aimed right, probably fairly deadly. Sure, he'd he needs her to stand in the living room, but... what if she's in the bathroom, or sleeping, or sick? It's not like he would simply not come in. He had that other time, when she was in the kitchen, and she wasn't standing where he could see her then. He would still come in - he'd just be more guarded.

But it doesn't matter how guarded he is, even with his finger on the trigger of that taser, if there's suddenly 10 or 15 or 20 pounds of solid porcelain coming straight at his face... right?

She spends the next six hours sitting, standing, sitting, standing, next to the door with the heavy porcelain lid in her hands. She's stopped letting herself consider the fact that maybe he'll never even come back at all.

And then there's the sound of a key in the lock, and she's already standing, she's ready, adrenaline flooding into her bloodstream, and the door opens into her and she's stepping around, swinging back...

The porcelain cracks into the edge of the door, right where his head should be, only there's a small paper bag falling into the room, and the taser goes skittering across the floor. He's ducking and grabbing her arm, the remaining half of the porcelain lid crashing to the floor, and he's pulling her arm over her head - and she sees the carpet, then the ceiling, and then all the wind's been knocked out of her, her back slamming into the floor and fire shooting through her shoulder.

There's screaming, and maybe it's coming from her, but then Degroot's face is hovering over hers, looking simultaneously annoyed and upset. "I was just bringing you a sandwich," he says.

"You dislocated my shoulder!" Juliet cries out, desperate for this fucking pain to stop, and his face twists.

"I'm sorry - I'm sorry - " He's pleading with her, even though she'd sort of just tried to kill him, or at least smash his face in, and he kneels next to her.

"Fix it - " she pants, even as she tries to back away from him, digging her heels into the floor and sliding, on her back, away from him.

"I - Juliet, what am I - "

She struggles to regain her composure, how the hell was DeGroot - how did he - he flipped her? "You have to pop my shoulder back in," she grits out.

He looks terrified. Right, he's a physicist, not a doctor. "I - I can't!"

"Right now it feels like there's broken glass under my skin," she practically growls, and that part is true. It hurts even worse than she remembers it, that first time, falling on the ice when David was maybe two years old - and David - she blinks back tears.

David. What has Jack told David? He wouldn't tell him the truth, not yet. He'd say she'd gone on a trip, but David would know something was wrong. Juliet's heart lurches. He must know something is wrong, and Jack is probably denying it to him.

What if - is it even possible she'll never see them again? Miss David's first day of kindergarten, first grade, learning to ride a two-wheeler, the way he still beams when she picks him up at the end of the day, every kiss goodnight and every homework assignment and every hug and every milestone, his first girlfriend, first after-school job, learning to drive, going off to prom -

Rachel. Rachel had written about someone, that Julian person, going to prom. Junior and senior. Is Rachel thinking about those strange dreams she had? Where Juliet goes away? (Disappears? Dies?)

What if Rachel gets sick again and Juliet's not there to take care of her? All because one crazy, selfish little man wants to keep her far, far away?

(Or maybe not so far - where are they, anyway?)

She steels herself for this next part, gritting her teeth, forcing herself to look him in the eyes. "You're the one who's keeping me here. You owe it to me. You owe me a lot more than this. So grab my hand, push up and twist."

He hesitates, but finally he inches forward, lacing his fingers through hers, and he does what she'd told him, fire shooting through her body, and she can't hold back another scream.

They're both kneeling on the floor her panting and holding her elbow.

"Did it work?" he asks anxiously.

"It worked."

His face changes then. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he yells. "We've known each other for almost four years! I am NOT a bad person. I am NOT trying to hurt you!"

She tries to turn all her cells into very tiny little inside-out pieces that can't feel a thing, but she's still just a prisoner here on the floor. Juliet eases down from her knees, sitting and her back against the couch, still clutching at her elbow. Pain is radiating outward from her shoulder, down her arm and into her fingers, and she's angry with herself, so angry this didn't work, and angry that now she's essentially lost function in one of her arms, temporarily, anyway. What is she supposed to do now?

DeGroot's expression falters. "I tried so hard. The van, the name of the project, the Koreans. I mean, you already seemed so close. All that physics in your undergraduate years, and the Latin - you must have been a Hostile originally, no? And I thought - I thought, I could take you here, you could see this place, the jumpsuits, listen to some old records, and... That's all it took for me. I just happened to paint my living room yellow, and once I was done I put on a Geronimo Jackson album. It all came flooding back, and at first I thought I was crazy, and then I had to look up Karen - she was my wife, the first time - and she really did exist, I found her in the phone book, under her maiden name, and I never even knew her this time, and I thought - my god, what have we done?"

She shakes her head slowly. He's momentarily back to gibberish, but then picks up a logical train of thought again.

"I didn't know it would take so long. That you'd react so badly. I supposed it was possible, of course, obviously that's why all the silverware is plastic, but I just - I thought you'd remember and then we could try to figure out what happened, exactly."

"Just let me leave," she whispers. "I just want to go home." (That's all she ever wanted, she thinks suddenly. Wildly. Another thought that makes no sense.)

He shakes his head incredulously. "If you go now, you're going to think I kidnapped you. Everyone will. You're supposed to go back and tell them you were working on a top-secret experiment that just went on for too long."

_And you really think that'll work_, she doesn't ask. "I'll say whatever you want if you let me leave."

He looks at the taser in his hand, shaking his head sadly. "Not yet." Then he raises the device and fires.

* * *

She's somewhere else now. Not at home, and not in the scary little yellow box of a house/apartment/prison. Her shoulder throbs and aches, like she's been hanging from just her arm, dangling while some force pulled her down, down...

The floor underneath her is cold and hard. Very cold. And it's dark, charcoal gray pressing against her closed eyelids, and no one will ever find her down here. She's maybe underground, under two tons of twisted metal, and her right hand is resting in a pool of cold, muddy water.

Something is humming warmly nearby.

She opens her eyes. The space is larger than she'd thought, for some reason, and now she thinks she knows where she is. DeGroot's warehouse in Detroit, the one where he'd moved his mysterious fourth-floor equipment after the Korean scientists freaked out and the university made him move it all.

She tries to remember. The taser must have been set pretty high, and he'd half-carried, half-dragged her out of the... apartment... and into a dark, industrial-looking hallway, flickering lights overhead, along a catwalk, eventually into a voluminous room where he'd dropped her to the floor and she didn't have the strength or will to try to get up, and then he was gone.

A few minutes later, something had lit up in the corner. A giant red-gold eye, or round, anyway, a cell with no nucleus, but big, taller than a person, humming, getting brighter and brighter and the room... seemed to come alive with some kind of energy. Her skin felt too hot and the noise was inside her skull and her rings started sliding to the tips of her finger - she'd balled her hand into a fist to stop them, and then... she doesn't remember anymore.

The fillings in her teeth ache.

(For the first time, she wonders if maybe dying would be better than just being left alone in this hole.)

She finally sits up and she wonders where he is, if he's coming back from her or - and a huge, heavy door is slowly creeping open. (She doesn't want to die alone. _Come on, you son of a bitch._) Juliet listens to the footsteps approach, and she does nothing, she has no way to fight anymore, pretty much everything hurts, and DeGoot's face emerges from the darkness. He's wearing... some kind of radiation suit.

"Are you OK?" he asks anxiously.

"Why do you care?" Her voice is gravelly.

"That was... a lot of radiation. Do you remember anything? That's what all my experiments were about. The electromagnetism -"

"No," she cuts him off. She doesn't want to hear any more. She's cold and exhausted and hungry, and her arm hurts and so do her teeth and she wants to give up now, please.

He sighs heavily. "I don't know what to do anymore." Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a pair of handcuffs. "I'm sorry, but this is the only way I can safely take you back to... to the residence."

Wordlessly, she extends her hands. She really would like to get out of this clammy darkness and back into the yellow living room.

* * *

He talks her into taking a shower once she feels like she can stand up again, and she's not all that sure how he does it, considering she hasn't felt safe enough to take one the entire time she's been stuck here, and now he's just in the very next room?

She makes it as fast as possible, repeatedly checking behind the shower curtain, but the door is still closed, and... well. The water is so warm. She is warm and alive.

Her clothes are too dirty. The dresser has underwear and socks and T-shirts and bras (she desperately tries not to imagine him in some store, picking out the array of sizes in the dresser, but sure enough, one of them is hers). She puts on everything but there are no goddamn pants, and, cringing, she zips herself into one of the navy jumpsuits.

It feels... strange, this heavy dark blue canvas completely enveloping her, and there's a moment when Juliet almost looks at herself in the mirror, but instead she hangs up her towels and goes into the living room, trying not to think about anything again. Something she's been doing with wildly differing amounts of success.

DeGoot's on the couch, two mugs on the coffee table. And a paper bag. He gestures to the couch. She takes a chair. He nods at the mugs. "Hot chocolate."

"No, thank you."

"You must be cold."

She remembers making Jack hot chocolate in her apartment, back when she was pregnant with David and they were barely on speaking terms. "I'm fine."

He reaches for the paper bag, holds it out for her. "Your sandwich?"

"I'm not hungry."

"How does your arm feel?"

"Awesome."

He sighs. "I can't tell you how sorry I am about all this," he says, before grimacing. "Despite appearances to the contrary. All of it - was supposed to be a last resort. Especially the machine. I suppose I should just come out and tell you."

He seems to want her to say something. "Go ahead," she says simply.

"There are - " DeGoot seemingly changes tactics, shifting on the couch. "This is not, to put it simply, the only time we've lived our lives. There was another life, before this."

Oh, great. He hasn't just gone off the deep end, he's actually in the middle of the ocean. "OK," she says slowly.

"In that other life, back in the 1970s, I was the leader of a scientific research group called the Dharma Initiative. We had many scientific interests, including human and animal behavior, time travel and - frankly, the end of the world. There's supposed to be an equation to predict it, you see. The Valenzetti equation."

He'd asked her about that on her med school interview. She doesn't speak, though.

"Anyway, part of the group had taken up residence on a remote tropical island. The most fascinating thing about it was it was almost impossible to find unless you had the right bearings - almost like it was on an entirely different plane of existence."

_Like your brain_, she thinks.

"In 1974, five strangers arrived on that island - or at least, they arrived at that little community. I wasn't there, you see. Running things back at the home office in Ann Arbor. Anyway - four men, one woman. One of the men ultimately came to work for me in Ann Arbor. Brilliant young man, deeply disturbed, but - anyway, they said their ship had wrecked. The leader of the island component, Horace Goodspeed, permitted them to stay on and get jobs."

Horace Goodspeed. Horace Goodspeed. Why does that name sound so familiar. Wait a second. That was the name of David's babysitter's husband. Back in L.A. Wasn't it? Unless she's remembering it wrong? Or what if he was tracking her, even then? No, she must be remembering it wrong.

DeGroot keeps talking. How the four other people lived on the island, with this group. The men worked on the security team, allegedly keeping them safe from the hostile indigenous people living elsewhere on the island. The woman was a mechanic.

In the '70s? His imagination even includes second-wave feminism. "How progressive of her."

He stares at her, fascinated. "We were an equal-opportunity employer."

_Of course._

Anyway, as DeGroot's story goes, everything went just fine for three years. At first, he'd had some concerns that their ship-sinking story had been a lie, that they were actually members of those Hostile Indigenous People (the horror!), but Horace kept writing him that everything was fine, and they all settled into routine.

But then his story turns, something wasn't right after a new group of recruits came in, right around the time the security team captured a Hostile within their borders. "They didn't really capture him," DeGroot notes. "Those people, from the ship - they must have been Hostiles all along. He was a plant. He escaped, shot a little boy - "

Here, Juliet's stomach lurches. Even though this is a made-up story, she thinks of David anyway and just - who could shoot a kid.

"Turns out, not only was the new janitor secretly a doctor, but it seems like the lady mechanic was, too."

"Maybe they needed a career change." She tries to imagine trading her med school education to hang out underneath cars. _Nope, not happening._

"And the so-called physicist? The one from the boat?" DeGroot snorts. "Shot one of our men - right in broad daylight there was a shootout. All the invaders ended up down at the drilling site for what was to be our new Swan station - all our stations had names, you see, the Swan and the Flame and the Arrow and the Orchid... The Swan site, though, that was special."

He starts going on about the unbelievable amounts of electromagnetism waiting just underneath, how dangerous is was to drill down. How powerful it could be if harnessed just right. Juliet thinks about the strange machine in the other room. Is he trying to make something like that? (Is anyone going to find her?)

"It's not entirely clear what happened, but these people - both the new recruits off the sub and the people who'd been there for three years - instigated a shootout at the site and then dropped a hydrogen bomb down the hole."

"And did they happen to get this hydrogen bomb at the island's hydrogen bomb store?" _Let's all put on our tinfoil hats because the government is broadcasting radio waves through the fillings in our teeth._

Then again, her fillings do kind of hurt right now. She presses a hand to her cheek.

"The U.S. government used the island for bomb testing in the 1950s," he says calmly. "As to how they knew it was there - well, as I said, these people had to be indigenous to the island, so they would have known about it."

"OK," she says flatly, not asking him to continue.

Of course, he does, though, and apparently the mechanic was sucked into the hole (how she knew how to do surgery if she was a Hostile Indigenous Person, he doesn't explain), and the others disappeared in a bright flash of light, because any insane story has to have a dramatic and mysterious disappearance, right?

"We never found her body, down in that hole. Instead we built a station underneath, not the one we'd wanted, but - we had to control the energy." He sighs. "We were studying the end of the world, and then these people could have almost caused it."

She's feeling deeply unnerved right now. Or, she supposes she's been deeply unnerved the entire time she's been here, but... Juliet stares into her untouched hot chocolate. She wishes that porcelain lid had connected with his face. She could be on her way home by now.

DeGroot shifts in his seat. "We studied all those applications very carefully - after the fact, unfortunately. The applications the hostile people had submitted to join our group. No one had conducted any background checks, you see. The mechanic had written she was from Portland, and - well, we found no record of that."

People lie. All the time. But then, this isn't real anyway.

"Anyway," he continues. "Time went on. We lost our island settlement, and I got old. Well. Late sixties, around where I am now. One day, somewhere around, I don't know, the last part is fuzzy in my mind, but somewhere in 1999 or 2000 perhaps, I was shoveling show outside my house - same house I live in now, actually. Wouldn't have bought it had I realized at the time. There was a shooting pain through my left arm, and then I was on the ground, and that was that. It was over." He sighs, takes a sip of his hot chocolate, probably cold by now. "I pay a kid in the neighborhood to shovel my snow now. Although I have to say, it's getting up near there, and - well, I am getting a bit nervous, I admit."

Her brow furrows; she can't prevent it. "It's 1996," she finally offers.

DeGroot jabs a thick finger in her direction. "Exactly! What I mean is, I died. And then, somehow, time started over again. I was born again, in the same year - allegedly - on the same date, to the same parents. And some things are the same, and others are completely different. And as I said, one day I was in my newly painted living room, listening to Geronimo Jackson, and it all came back to me. It had to have been the hydrogen bomb at the core of the island. What else could have restarted time?" He raises his eyebrows at her, excited. "What else?" he prompts.

"I don't know," Juliet answers obediently.

DeGroot nods his head rapidly, excitedly, and points a finger at her again. "Exactly. Nothing else could have done it! But the chances of me finding you - you, out of everyone - and that you chose to apply to the campus in Ann Arbor - " He shakes is head, something akin to disbelief on his face. "That couldn't have been just chance."

"...What couldn't have been chance?"

He gapes at her now. "Juliet... After everything I've done to get you here? After everything I've done to keep you here? How could you not understand? You were the mechanic!"

_Oh god. Oh GOD._ This is all because she has the same name as someone in his Let's Go to Crazytown vision? She's taken more science courses than she could probably even remember at this point. Obviously what he's talking about is impossible - and obviously, she should have spent more time studying mental illness.

But DeGroot only twists in his seat, telling her how he'd actually visited her high school's library, stolen a yearbook, how it was the same face as the one in her personnel file with the Dharma Initiative, only much younger.

"Now, that part, I'll admit I don't understand. You were in your thirties back then. Now, you're twenty-five. I used to think you were maybe aging slowly in reverse. As crazy as that sounds."

_Right, unlike everything else that's come out of your mouth._ But then she remembers Rachel's crazy days, and hadn't she said - but no, first off, she was sick and confused, and second of all, they never... in the 1970s? They were little kids. The 1970s means roller skates and Hungry Hungry Hippos and Malibu Barbie and cluttering the living room with pieces of the chemistry set that Rachel made fun of her over, since it was supposed to be a boys' toy.

"Now, I suppose maybe you were just born later this time. But same name, same face - you were born in Portland - it's you. And... I need to know, Juliet. What happened after you got pulled down into the hole?"

She stares at him, her breath suddenly coming too quickly. Because he's telling her this story, with so many details, and it all seems so realistic, that there would be job applications and a computer, and - but that someone with her same name, older than her, would - she's starting to sweat now, her fingers curled around the edge of her seat. It could be so easy to say she believes him, make up something that she "remembers," and go home.

"I..." She begins shakily.

He rocks forward on his seat, eagerly. "Do you remember something?"

"I think so." What would this other, older, progressive woman do, down in a hole? "I..." _...am twenty-five, a wife and a mother. All I want to do right now is hug my son, not instigate a wild shootout before getting sucked into a mineshaft. I am not that other (imaginary) person._ "In the - " she tries again, starting to tremble. This room seems... a little dark all of a sudden. Her hands are shaking. She tries to focus on the yellow daisy near the sink, and then abruptly she stands before her knees give out.

"Juliet!" DeGroot is leaping out of his seat, kneeling down to her on the floor.

She feels woozy, like the linoleum is actually trying to swallow her up like an angry gaping ground, and who is he? She blinks a few times, and DeGroot's face comes back into focus.

Wait. He keeps coming back and forth. The police obviously don't know he's involved or he would have had to disappear entirely, staying with her all the time. She has to leave a mark on him. She has to mark him!

"Juliet?" he's asking, leaning down, and she reaches up, digging her fingernails into his left cheek, dragging downward. DeGroot yells, jumping backward, standing and picking up the taser from the floor, his free hand flying to his scratched face.

There's a quick flash of his moving hand. Then: pain, shooting though her again, every cell ringing with it, and for a few seconds her mind is totally blank, devoid of anything other than the fact that she's an animal trapped and punished.

His voice is angry now. "You killed two of my men, you could at least have gotten some punishment in this reality for that!"

This. This all is punishment, her mind taunts as her brain stats to reassemble itself, whether she deserves it or not. How could someone simply reach out and shock another human being like this? Keep them in a cage?

She is cattle, she was marked, or no - no, _she_ marked _him_, she scratched him, and if he leaves again, he'll have to try to hide it, and - it's not that SHE was marked, no no no, but why hadn't she been able to bash his face in earlier, how had be flipped her, gotten the upper hand, and - her face crumples, her sinuses flooding.

"It didn't work," she cries now. "It didn't work."

His eyes widen, his jaw drops. "Juliet? What didn't work?"

She's trying not to throw up, not to sob outright, shaking all over, and he helps her sit up.

"What didn't work?" he repeats. "Whatever you were trying to do with the bomb?"

If she and her imaginary friends had blown up a bomb, how is she still here? "I guess not," Juliet finally whispers.

* * *

He leaves her alone after that, for too long actually, a nerve-wracking three days, three fucking days, and she spends half the time on her knees in the bathroom, puking her guts out. Because either that really was radiation he exposed her to, or more likely, she hasn't accepted her new reality (translation: BEING TRAPPED IN A FUCKING CAGE) as smoothly as she'd like.

The nosebleeds are a bit concerning, though.

There are no pens or pencils anywhere here, not that she can find, but she tries to keep track of the days in her head, and roughly how many nights' worth of bedtime stories she owes David. (She wonders how long people will look for her. Imagines her sister talking to some TV news reporter about everything, at least until everyone gives up/loses interest/finds some other mysteriously vanished person to obsess over.)

She hopes Rachel's in Ann Arbor though. David would need her.

(If a small child can't have his mom, he at least needs an aunt, and for some reason keeping that though vague in her head helps her to stay way from most of the things she'd rather not think about.)

She's started sleeping in the actual bed by now, although it's weird sleeping alone; even here she expects someone to be next to her, and two mornings (or, what she imagines to be mornings; see again: NO WINDOWS) in a row she wakes up wrapped around a pillow.

Finals should be going on now. Plans for graduation. She and Jack were supposed to be packing, preparing for a dreaded year apart thanks to sucky timing. Rachel and Niall were supposed to arrive soon. They were supposed to drive to Lake Huron for the weekend.

Supposed to, supposed to, supposed to.

Now, though, there's a noise somewhere in the apartment, she can't really tell where because she's still half-asleep, even though if DeGroot's on his way back in, she should definitely get up, but no, she shouldn't, because she doesn't feel like getting tased again, and besides, she doesn't feel well, so instead she rolls onto her stomach, puts her head under the pillow. Maybe she can fake being sick today. Wouldn't even be much of an act.

"Juliet?" a voice calls out.

Only... it's not his voice. It's not DeGroot. Her stomach turns over. This - no, she's not allowed to hope - she slides her head out from under the pillow. Slips out of bed, still wearing one of those ridiculous jumpsuits because there are no pajamas and she's not not not sleeping without pants here.

She stands, and she waits. Staying very, very still on her side (her side?) of the bed.

"Juliet, can you hear us?" the voice calls again.

"I - I'm in here," she finally answers. Please, please, please.

The first thing she sees is a pair of hands, steady on a gun, peeping around the corner. Then a helmet - and a face underneath, and then a rush of uniformed bodies pouring into the room, two and four and six.

"Detroit PD," one of them announces, and... It's like the L.A. riots all over again, is her first confused thought, even though one of them is telling her she's OK now. They're wearing riot gear. And then: _They're here for me._

"He's not here," is somehow the first thing out of her mouth. "Gerald DeGroot - it was Dr. DeGroot, from the university."

"We know," says the one nearest her. "We got him. Followed him, and he led us right here. You scratched him, didn't you? A student noticed he tried to cover up a scratch with makeup."

"I marked him," she says absently, her mind full of too many things, not the least of which is all his crazy st- "I wanted to be able to go home," and her voice breaks.

* * *

She refuses to be taken to the hospital, at least, not at first. Instead, they bring her to the precinct, a lone reporter and cameraman hanging around outside shouting questions. The detectives will ask questions later, not now, and she sits in a little waiting area, still overly pliant and obedient because at this point, she's kind of gotten used to being told what do to.

It's not an interrogation room with two-way glass like she's somehow imagined, just a worn couch, two armchairs, a vending machine, and this entire thing feels surreal and other-wordly. Fresh air and voices of other people, police scanners crackling, and somewhere the hiss of television.

She stares at the floor. This is real, right? Yes, yes, not only that she's free now, but - well, what DeGroot was saying - that wasn't, well, it's not -

There's a scuffle of feet at the door, and she drags her eyes up.

It's funny, she almost doesn't recognize him anymore, or maybe she was expecting someonw else? (No.) He looks like he hasn't shaved or slept in a week, and he's gasping, practically panting, but then she's nearly flying across the room, into his arms, and Jack is wrapping his arms around her, holding her tight.

"Is David - " she tries.

"He's OK," he says over her. "Are you - "

"I don't know." It's not panic, not exactly, but - "I think so."

"It's all right," he says into her hair, his stubble scratchy against her face, and - this is real, everything makes sense, it does. "I got you," he says, his arms tightening around her. "I got you."


	65. It Was a Stupid Plan

**Hey all, I'm back. With another one of those "weird time shift"/"part 1 of a 2-part chapter" chapters.**

* * *

_I'll look at everything around me_  
_and I will vow to bear in mind _  
_that all of this was just someone's idea._  
_It could just as well be mine._

- Ani DiFranco, "Red Letter Year"

* * *

**Los Angeles, Fall 1996**

"Please don't take this the wrong way, but... I really don't think I need therapy."

Dr. Klugh makes a big show of closing her notebook. "How about we call it talking, instead of therapy."

Juliet smiles weakly.

"Besides, today's really more of a meet-and-greet," Dr. Klugh continues, steepling her fingers. "So you've been back in L.A. eight weeks. What's your least favorite part?"

"Of L.A.? I don't..." _Traffic? Working all the fucking time? Missing my husband?_ Except she kind of doesn't, right now. "I don't like being treated like I'm about to fall apart at any second."

"And why do you feel that way?"

"I just - the way people talk to me. That my sister and brother-in-law just decided they would come here and live with us. She's always... I don't know. Watching me." It was Rachel who set up this stupid appointment, told this outsider all about the... the incident.

"She's looking out for you."

"She never - I..." What is she supposed to say that doesn't sound like whining? Because these days, Juliet's not sure what she'd do without Rachel taking care of her. _It wasn't supposed to be like this._

"Do you want to talk about what happened in May?"

_Not even a little bit._ But Juliet guides her through the particulars, pretending Dr. Klugh is just another detective, just another over-eager assistant D.A. Six days, a fake apartment in a warehouse, mild radiation poisoning, her dislocated shoulder and the scratch on his face. Etc., etc., etc. She's told the story enough times that it doesn't even feel like it happened to her.

(It happened to some other, braver, wholer Juliet.)

"Your sister said that the man who took you - " Here, Dr. Klugh fumbles for her notes.

"Dr. DeGroot," Juliet supplies. Is it weird she still refers to him formally? Wouldn't Psycho Kidnapper Who Kind of Brainwashed Me work better?

"Dr. DeGroot. How do you feel about the fact that he pled guilty? Would you have rather faced him in court? Do you feel cheated?"

She's already shaking her head. "No. No. Not at all."

"And he's due to be sentenced..."

"Next month."

"Do you have any plans to attend?"

She shifts in her seat. "I - no. It's - it's in Michigan. My husband... Can we talk about something else now?"

Dr. Klugh nods. "I know you're working long hours. New intern at UCLA, right?"

Juliet nods, holding onto the pillow on her lap. Once upon a time, it had kind of made _sense _to plan a return to L.A. Everything had been going so well with Jack's parents, from a distance. Christian was sober for five years in the spring, and Margo could help with David while Juliet worked. And after all, Juliet wasn't neurosurgery royalty like Jack was. She'd had to go through Matching Day like all the other med school peasants. And Matching Day stuck her with UCLA, which sure, she'd put as her third choice, but... Jack's fellowship in Michigan still isn't done until next spring.

"And what effect do you think that's having on your coping skills?"

"I think it's good for me. Learning new things. Helping other people." She smiles bravely. _I am a fucking pioneer._

"That certainly can be helpful. To know you have to keep things together for work. Is that - "

"Yes."

"But I'm sure you miss your husband. Did you think about staying in Michigan, after... after the incident?"

_She's using that word too?_ "Yes, but... that wasn't the plan."

"So you're someone who likes to stick to the plan."

"I didn't have a job in Ann Arbor." She feels like she's getting defensive right now. Like the doctor's asking her why she couldn't have been a stay-at-home mom for a year. Until Jack was ready. But she couldn't. Because between... between, between, well, the _incident_, and when she and David left for L.A., just about the only thing she managed to do on her own was get David to day camp, and then, well... pick him up from day camp.

"And what do you do when you're not working these days?"

_When I'm not working? When is that, exactly?_ "I take care of my son."

"And?"

And? She lifts up her hands, turning then at the wrists. "Sleep."

Sympathetic Therapist nods Sympathetically. "Your family is worried about you. Your sister said you spend most of your free time sleeping. And you went through something very traumatic a few months back. It's natural that you'd react by - "

"I work 16 hours a day."

Dr. Klugh pauses. Looks her right in the eyes. Juliet looks right back at her. _This is my I'm Not Lying face._ "And it's very natural that you'll need a lot of rest with that schedule," the doctor continues. "Unfortunately, I don't think it's helping you right now. We might want to consider this as a sort of adjustment disorder right now."

"Look._ Doctor."_ She bites that word, making it sound more sarcastic than she'd intended. "I get up every day and go to work. I'm there for my patients. I listen to them and I give them everything I can. I delivered two babies on my own yesterday because the attending was held up. And - they were perfect. It was _perfect_. You're biased from what my sister told you on the phone. And my sister? She leaves her hair in the shower drain all the time. Every day. My brother-in-law and I both have to pull it out because she won't touch it. We've never said a word to her about it. Even though it's disgusting. Because we both know why she leaves it there. Because it upsets her. Makes her think about - when she had cancer. We never say a thing. But _I_ have the adjustment disorder."

This is the longest thing she's said outside of work in months.

When the hour is up, Juliet shoves a handful of pamphlets into her purse, squares her shoulders and heads back out into the sunshine.

* * *

Home these days is a yellow one-story bungalow near the airport. There's a sparse, pebble-studded front yard, a cracked patio out back. The neighborhood is full of barbecue grills and barking dogs and rusting cars up on cinderblocks, and the cops ride through more often here than anywhere else Juliet's ever lived. But with Rachel just starting up a photography business, Niall's first year teaching public school, and Juliet's joke of a salary, this was the best they could get in a halfway decent school district.

Jack sends her money, but maintaining separate households is expensive. Even so, it was a clever excuse for Rachel to use, Juliet thinks as she pulls into the driveway. ("You know, Niall and I had been thinking about moving to L.A. even before you got that internship offer...") Except now she feels like she's being watched all the time. Practically as though there are security cameras everywhere.

(There aren't. It just feels, sometimes, like...) _Never mind._

Rachel and David have the sprinkler going in the front, with Rachel's dog Xerxes - gray on his muzzle now - watching lazily from the front steps. Juliet gets out of the car, it all takes a lot more strength than it should, and David skids to a stop, his hair wet and spiky, his skin tan in these last days of Indian summer. "Mommy! Can we get pizza tonight, 'cause Aunt Rachel has to work, and - "

Juliet slams the car door, only it sounds more like a hollow thunk. "Yes. Sure." She's not cooking tonight. Just wants to sleep. Things are too confusing. _Rachel's a photographer now, but didn't she used to... _(No.)

Rachel turns off the water spigot with her big toe. "I'm shooting this crap party in East Hollywood, remember, and Niall's got that parent-teacher thing, but I could always - "

"Rachel, it's fine."

They stare at each other, facing off for long enough that David reaches down and turns on the sprinkler again, starts tugging at Rachel's hand. "C'monnn, Aunt Rachel, are we gonna do the water balloons, 'cause you said..."

Juliet floats into the house. David would rather play with his aunt anyway. '_Jack called, 1:08_,' announces a blue Post-It on the door frame of her bedroom. _'Call back aft 8 PST.'_ She kicks off her shoes, lets herself freefall face-first into her sheets. Fucking exhausted.

She's not sure how much time has passed when there's a knock at the door. "Yeah," she says into her pillow.

The door creaks open. The end of the mattress dips. "So how bad was it?" Rachel's disembodied voice asks.

Juliet keeps her face in the pillow. "It was... I don't know. It was fine." She feels Rachel's hand slide around her ankle.

"Are you going to go back?"

She lets that go by unanswered. "What time to you have to leave tonight?"

"Set-up's in about two hours. Niall can call and order the pizza for you guys before he leaves. There's a salad in the fridge, OK? Make sure you guys eat some salad."

She nods, rolling over to look at her sister. She wants to thank her, wants to apologize for being so incapable of everything. That she can't make dinner for her kid, that she needs to be reminded there's salad in the fridge. And work takes up every brain cell, every ounce of energy she has these days, which granted, isn't a lot to begin with. Why did Dr. DeGroot have to fuck with her head, why is she always expecting there's something _more_ -

"What time do you have to be at work tomorrow morning?" Rachel asks.

"Five," she whispers.

Rachel's face softens. "We'll get him on the bus." She picks a piece of lint off Juliet's jeans. "You don't have to keep doing this, you know."

"I... what."

"You can quit. We can help you guys get back to Ann Arbor."

"That's not... that wasn't the plan."

"It was a stupid plan."

"It wasn't before."

"Well, a lot of things were different, before." Rachel grimaces, fiddles with the metal stud in her nose. It's funny, but three years ago, Rachel had gone and gotten her nose pierced, right out of the blue. A few months after her transplant. Juliet couldn't figure it out, but Rachel had only rolled her eyes.

"Look, you're only young once," Rachel had said, and for some reason then, she started giggling. Couldn't even stop.

"You're not even that young anymore," Juliet had told her sister.

"Julie, you have no idea," Rachel had said through her laughter.

Now, though: "Don't forget to call Jack," her sister says before she goes.

* * *

Juliet manages to rally tonight.

She lets David decide: Stay up an extra 20 minutes, _or_ they can have pizza. She calls to cancel the pizza. Makes spaghetti sauce from scratch, dishes up Rachel's salad. She has David clear the table while she cleans up the kitchen. Like a checklist of What Families Are Supposed to Do. She helps him with his spelling words. She reads him There's No Such Thing as a Dragon twice.

* * *

**Ann Arbor, Summer 1996**

Fact: There is a fist-sized hole in their bedroom wall.

Fact: Three empty bottles of Jim Beam are tucked under the newspaper in the recycling bin.

Fact: She says nothing about any of this, and Jack doesn't volunteer.

Fact: Rachel bought David a Casio keyboard while Juliet was... (gone), even through the piano teacher said he doesn't have to practice at home until he's six.

Fact: All day long now, he plucks out "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Happy Birthday to You" and "Row Row Row Your Boat" until she thinks she's going insane.

Fact: She actually goes to graduation.

Fact: She gets more applause there than anyone.

Fact: This makes her want to hide.

Fact: It's not like she's _actually_ hiding. It's not like she's spending all day in bed, or listening to Radiohead or "Boys for Pele" on repeat.

Fact: She's fine. She's totally, totally fine, all right? _God._

Fact: It's weird, but she wants a cup of tea.

She's standing at the microwave, watching the mug rotate hypnotically on its clear glass plate, not thinking about anything in particular, and definitely _not_ thinking about electromagnetic radiation, and then there's a hand touching each of her elbows and she should have noticed Jack's reflection, but -

"Hi," she gasps, lurching up on the balls of her feet.

"Sorry!"

"What?" She forces herself to turn around.

"I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't mean to - "

"I know. It's fine. I mean - you didn't - " she says over him.

"Do you want to put David to bed? Or I can - "

"No, no, I want to." Juliet's been home for a week. Seven days. Everything is fine. She forces a smile, hits the cancel button on the microwave. _Maybe some other time._

David's room is impossibly messy right now, and he's usually such a meticulous kid. But books are heaped in a half-collapsed stack by the nearly empty toy box, its contents of robots and planes and various miniature emergency vehicles instead swirling their way through a galaxy of Legos and K'nex and Lincoln Logs on the floor.

David is rooting through whatever's under his bed, half his body squished between the bed frame and the floor.

"What are you looking for, baby?"

He doesn't back out; his voice sounds muffled. But everything sounds a little muffled to her these days. "My music book."

"It's time for bed. We can look for it tomorrow. Have you picked out your stories?"

He moves further under the bed, shoving out his lefty baseball glove, dirty socks, a sea of broken crayons. She bites back what she wants to say about how it's his job to keep his room clean. He's five years old. He's angry and pushing it back, like Jack does, and she doesn't know how to guide him away from that, can't take that on right now, and maybe that makes her a bad mother. (She doesn't know, can't tell.)

"Where's Daddy?"

"In the kitchen. I though I could put you to bed tonight."

Slowly, he slides back out, easing onto his knees and half-turns around. "_I want my music book!_ And _Dad's_ s'posed to put me to bed, and - " He bites his lip, trying not to cry, and it just about breaks her heart.

Juliet picks a book out of the pile on the floor. "We could read There's No Such Thing as a Dragon."

He stares at her, weighing his options, transforming from a miniature Jack to a miniature her, the calm stealing over his face, and this is unsettling in a way that few things are. "OK," he finally says, guardedly.

They read the book together, David inching closer to her throughout the story. "I wanna read one now," he instructs when they're done, and she digs a Dr. Seuss book out of the pile for him, Green Eggs and Ham. _Ham_, she thinks, confused. _When did I have...?_ But David begins quickly, reading it aloud to her, hardly stumbling until about two thirds of the way through. Then his voice drifts off and the book starts to droop; at first she thinks he's falling ssleep.

Except: "Where were you before?" he finally says.

She's answered this already. She knows Jack has too. But she bites back everything she wants to say, instead smoothing her hand over his forehead. "I had to go away for work. And I didn't know - I thought it would take only a little awhile. But I was - I was there a lot longer than I planned." This is true, she somehow knows it deep down, that's it's not quite a lie, just that - just that -

"But everyone was really sad and mad. Daddy yelled a _lot. _And then he cried."

"They didn't know - they didn't know where I was. Because I was only supposed to be gone for a little while. But it's OK now." The words taste sharp in her mouth. Metallic.

David runs his finger over the spine of his book. "You don't have to do that again, right?"

"No, baby. I'm not going to do that again."

* * *

In bed that night, she reaches for Jack. Because she wants to figure this out, drag out some kind of emotion from both of them. Because this is what people are supposed to do. And because she's not so sure he believes her story about what did and didn't happen in Detroit.

Slowly, silently, they peel off T-shirts and shorts and underwear in the dark, hiding under the covers like they're on an illicit camping trip, secreting themselves away in a tent and trying to make sure no one else can hear them. "Is this OK?" are the only words shared between them - him to her, of course. Then he's inside her and she's burying her face in his neck and hooking her ankle around the back of his knee, moving with him, that same quiet occasional creak in the bedframe as always. This is _all_ the way it's always been, she tries to tell herself, and she's breathing against him, except - except - except it's wrong, it's all wrong, and - "Stop," she gasps.

Jack doesn't seem to hear her, or doesn't want to, and after another few seconds, her hand shoves up against his chest.

"Stop," Juliet hisses again, and this time he complies, breathing heavy. It's quiet between them, just the sound of his panting, her quiet breaths.

Jack's fingers curl around her hip, but he's still inside her. "Are you OK?"

_No. Yes. I don't know. This feels all wrong._ Her knees tense. The bedroom, even in the dark, is white and not yellow and she keeps having dreams about that fake little house in... in Detroit and it was _yellow_ and she had the right side of the bed there. Not the left like here. Everything is reversed and... "Just - stop. Get out!"

He shifts over her, slipping out of her finally but otherwise staying where he is, his face right over hers and full of anguished concern. "Juliet - I'm - god, I'm sorry, are you - ?"

"I'm, I don't know," she squeaks out. She wishes, suddenly, she'd gone back to Arizona with Rachel and Niall. This feels too intimate. Like she shouldn't be here, like she's supposed to be somewhere else, and then Juliet is crying, pushing him off her, pressing her legs together.

Jack, to his credit, moves away this time, doesn't try to touch her, and he probably thinks she's lying about not having been raped, but what's she supposed to say? Instead she sits up, against the headboard, pulling the sheet up to cover herself.

"I'm going to quit my fellowship" are the next words out of his mouth. "I'm coming to California with you."

Juliet wraps her arms around herself, trying to get it under control. Every time she thinks she's got it, another sob rolls through her. And the sad thing is, she wishes he _would_ hold her right now. It feels like she's forgetting something she didn't even know she had. Which, of course, is ridiculous. In fact, it's all ridiculous. So that's what she says: "That's ridiculous."

His nostrils flare, his eyes darkening. "I'm not letting you go without me. So you can either tell them you're not going, or I'm quitting and going with you."

"If you quit before you finish the fellowship, we're both screwed. David too." He'd never be able to get another job. (At least, not unless he worked under his father...)

He reaches out then, brushes away her tears, and she can tell it's killing him to hold everything in, she can _see_ the rage under the surface of his skin, a bomb about to blow any second. "Then tell them you're not going."

"Can we talk about this some other time? I'm just - really tired."

Jack's hand leaves her face abruptly. He throws back the sheets, stands up. Finds his boxers crumpled on the floor. Yanks them on. "And we're both fine," he snaps, just before he slams the door behind him.

* * *

The early part of the summer limps along. She drives David to day camp every morning. The first couple of weeks, she cleans the apartment while he's gone. Goes grocery shopping, looks up new recipes. Ties on her sneakers and runs around the neighborhood a few times. One morning though, she decides, just this once, she's so tired. She's going to take a nap on the couch. An hour. Two. Soon she has to set the alarm to wake her when it's time to pick up David. Their place isn't_ that_ dirty. And they can use paper plates and plastic silverware. Takeout's a lifesaver. And David doesn't really want her to play with him, anyway. Jordan down the street is much more fun, right? He can go over there.

Maybe she doesn't need to move to L.A. this year. It's not like UCLA would crumble into the sea if she didn't show up to offer stunningly brilliant contributions to their internship program. She wasn't even supposed to _go_ to UCLA in the first place. Now she's going _back?_

Juliet is in the middle of another epic nap when something in her brain starts clattering. Knocking. She squeezes her eyes shut, presses her face into the couch. It doesn't stop, and finally she's forced to admit she's awake even though her eyes are still closed.

Someone's definitely knocking on the door. _Fuck._ Don't they know this isn't a good time? Jack hasn't picked up the living room in awhile, too busy with work. Couldn't he just do that_ one thing?_

The knocking gets louder. "Son of a bitch," Juliet says under her breath, but then she must have sat up too quickly because she's almost overwhelmed with a wave of dizziness. She'd run a hand through her hair but she kind of hasn't washed it in a couple of days, and... _Fine. FINE. Wait a second, would you?_

Rachel is standing on the front porch, her long hair practically glittering in the sun. A goddamn textbook case of excellent health.

"Um - hi!" Juliet says brightly. _Shit shit shit shit._

"Hey there, little sis!" Rachel trills back.

"What are you doing here? It's great to see you!"

"Wow, that's so exceedingly polite!" Rachel answers back, just as fake-enthusiastically. "Are you going to invite me in or not?"

_Is not inviting you in even an option, you tricky little bitch?_ "Of course!" Even so, her heart skips a beat when Rachel grabs her duffel and follows Juliet inside.

"Nice place you got here."

"We've been - really busy what with trying to pack and everything."

"Yeah, I can see that. You haven't even gotten boxes yet or anything." Rachel eyes a plate of crumbs under a lamp. There's some congealed jelly on there too. "Are you going to pack those bread crusts?"

Juliet purses her lips.

"Juliet, I'm not an idiot, and this is pathetic. You think Jack doesn't have my number?"

_And has Jack also told you about all the times we've tried to have sex and it hasn't. WORKED. How even when I CAN go through with it, I can never ever come? And what about the SECOND hole he punched in the wall? Goes great with the first one._ "O-OK. I'm not - I'm not doing this. We're done. You can stay if you want to visit, but you can't just come in here and -"

"No. Way. Look, I lost you once, and I am not doing through that again. So you're going to go take a shower, and I'm going to make us some food that doesn't come from a box, and then we're going to clean up this place and figure out what the hell to do next."

What is Rachel even talking about? She didn't _lose_ Juliet. Juliet came back. She's right in front of her, for god's sake.

Rachel is picking up Juliet's brown sandals from the floor. And then her sneakers. And then her gold sandals. And then _David's_ sneakers. Yeah, there kind of was a lot of stuff on the floor. Leave it to Rachel to just - barge in here at the worst possible moment. Rachel stands there with her arms full of shoes. Her cheeks puff out for a second, and then she's marching down the hall. Juliet jogs after her, and Rachel pitching's David's sneakers into his room, the rest of them into Juliet's bedroom closet. "That's one thing done. Come on."

"Come on, what?"_ Come on, you son of a bitch_ feels like the correct answer, for some reason._  
_

Rachel goes into the bathroom, turns on the shower, crosses her arms.

Juliet stands there, feeling the grime of the bathroom throw rug against her bare feet. What's so unfair is that none of this is her fault. She didn't volunteer for any of this. Didn't ask for it. Didn't sign a bunch of forms and agree to leave her family and everyone she knew. Didn't ask to be kept isolated, have her shoulder dislocated.

"I know it's not fair, what happened," Rachel suddenly says, over the din of the rushing water. Like she can just read Juliet's mind now. "Trust me, you want to talk about unfair, I could - " She stops suddenly, looks down at the floor. "You just, you don't know how easy you have it. Now get in the shower."

(She gets in the shower.)

When she comes out, she wanders through the apartment, looking for her sister. Rachel's scrubbing the kitchen counter. The dishwasher hums and swishes. Rachel twists her mouth. As though if she begins talking now, she'll never be able to stop.

Juliet stands there and waits, her hair already starting to dry curly. She feels the breeze on her skin, Rachel had opened all the windows, and - it feels good.

Finally Rachel sighs, shifting the sponge from one hand to the other. "You know, Niall and I had been thinking about moving to L.A. even before you got that internship offer," she begins.


	66. Dolphins Too

**Ah, remember when you could actually wait for people at the airport at the actual gate?**

**Note: Ann Arbor flashback here is set earlier than the Ann Arbor flashback in the previous chapter.**

**Another note (warning?): This chapter gets, um, kind of smutty. Just sayin'.**

* * *

_When you and I are lying in bed _  
_ you don't seem so tall._  
_ I'm singing now because my tear ducts are too tired _  
_ and my brain is disconnected but my heart is wired._

- Ani DiFranco, "Fire Door"

* * *

**Los Angeles, Late Fall 1996**

Juliet's always hated airports. Flying itself isn't so bad, she's certainly not a nervous flyer like Jack, but airports - the rows of vinyl seats, the half-hearted bookstores only offering the most mainstream boring paperbacks, the sickly-sweet smell of Cinnabon shops and stale coffee permeating the air.

And all those people saying goodbye.

Except they're here today to say hello. David's a bundle of energy, hopping from one foot to another in his almost-too-small sneakers (she needs to get some in the next size up, already). Ever since school started, he's been interested in baseball, probably the influence of the other boys in his class, and she hopes he's trying not to get their approval (or maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing - she'd never fit in at school, had been such a mess by the time high school was over)... or Jack's approval. But at any rate, David is suddenly so eager to play ball with his father - hell, he'd even begged Juliet to buy him a Dodgers cap despite Juliet's gentle insistence that maybe a Red Sox one would be better.

Jack's going to be thrilled... except, maybe, for the Dodgers cap on David's head. She couldn't find a Red Sox one on such short notice out here. Might have to ask Christian to look for one.

"And Daddy said on the phone that on Sunday, we can go to see one of the real games like on TV, like when Grandpa and Papa Ray and I went, where you have to really pay attention because the announcer guys aren't really there, they're only talking on TV, and how many days is it until then?" He pulls off his cap, gathering the soft part of it into his fist, still hopping around.

Juliet takes another sip of her coffee, feeling the exhaustion squirming in every cell. Last night's overnight shift had run long, leaving her with no time to nap before they'd had to leave for the airport this morning. The skin on her hands and arms is a dusty red, dry from scrubbing in so many goddamn times; she assisted in four C-sections last night, and the truth is, she can't wait to be rotated back into the clinic.

She knows it'll get easier, but for now, those C-sections still make her so goddamned uneasy. Make her think of all those nightmares she'd had during the second trimester of her pregnancy with David.

Also: Her face hurts, she's so tired.

Rachel had offered to pick up Jack today, ("Or, shit, he could just get a cab," Rachel had said), but Juliet didn't really think that was fair to any of them. Jack usually visited every three weeks or so, and she felt like she owed it to him to be vaguely functional during his visits. At least until she had to leave (escape?) for work again.

"How come you have to be a doctor?" David had asked her the other night as she was putting him to bed.

Juliet finished stacking up the books they'd read. "I didn't have to. It's what I wanted to do. To help women have babies. Like my doctor helped me have you."

"But why do you want to be away all the time?"

She'd paused, unstacking the books again, lining them up, edge to edge, on top of David's comforter. _You know what, I bet that imaginary, bomb-throwing mechanic version of me got home on time every night._

And that imaginary(!) (IMAGINARY!) _(for god's sake, Dr. Degroot!)_ version of her had no little boy to miss, to feel guilty about.

Even so, this was the kind of question from David that sent something straight into her heart. Not a spike, not something that sharp. But maybe an accupuncture needle, testing the nerves, seeing what thrums, what's sensitive.

She'd leaned in, her hand tracing over his forehead. "I don't want to be away from you, baby. Dad's a doctor too, right? Because it's important to both of us to help people."

David had frowned, drawing the covers up a little higher. "Yeah, but he's _always_ been gone."

Their entire time in L.A., her slog through the first months of her work at UCLA, she's been wondering if Jack had felt guilty during the roughest parts of his internship and residency. Hardly seeing her, hardly seeing David, leaving so much of everything up to her. But it's been going on for nearly David's entire life, and he doesn't know anything different. Jack's absence now is tempered by action-packed Let's Have Massive Amounts of Quality Time visits. Massive amounts of quality time for David, anyway.

As for her and Jack? Last time? Last time he visited, he hadn't even reached for her. They'd slept back to back, not touching, a vast stretch of mattress separating them. She'd ended up thinking about that time they'd fallen asleep together when David was a newborn (and not about a man with long, dark eyelashes telling her that she was special, and he wanted her to lead a team of highly trained people).

And why? _Why_ did they sleep barely touching?

_Because having a dysfunctional sex life when you're only in your 20s? Just seemed like it would be a really fulfilling experience._ She'd gotten so fucking sick of Jack's increasingly desperate attempts to get her off. Half the time she'd just end up pushing him away, anyway, which inevitably ended with him getting angry or sulky, and she just felt like a prude or a bitch or an ice queen, whatever other demeaning names she could come up with for herself.

She's just had the strangest dreams ever since... well. Not nightmares, and they're never all that clear in her head by the time she wakes up, but in one she remembers slightly better, she's telling someone that her favorite book is Carrie. And, Carrie? Seriously? Uh, no way. But in the dream, she's telling this person(?) it's because it reminded her of her sister. "She ain't a sociopath who could set fires with her mind, is she?" this mysterious person had asked, and Juliet had woken up laughing.

See? Not a nightmare! Not at all. And she couldn't figure out what they had to do with not wanting Jack to touch her, but... apparently she'd gotten her message across anyway.

And so, during Jack's last visit, it seemed like he'd just finally given up. Ironically, to Juliet that seemed to only make everything worse, and... _shut up shut up shut up._ She wants to stop trying to analyze this.

They've been living apart for four months now. It's been six months since, well, the incident. (Six months since Jack had gotten her, to, well...) And in eight more months, he's supposed to move back to L.A., and - (those rooms were so small and yellow; there was a flower on the counter) -

"Mo-_mmmmy!"_ David is wailing now.

Juliet blinks. "Sorry, what?"

He bounces from one foot to another, again, throwing his cap into the air and catching it. "How many days until Sunday?"

She stares at him. Had Rachel given him sugary cereal or something this morning? They'd gotten him into accelerated kindergarten, he can even read a little, for god's sakes, he knows how many days until Sunday. He just wants attention, and she's not even giving him that. _Yeah. Great parenting. _

"Today's Thursday," she prompts. "Come on, you know this. So tomorrow is..."

David frowns, pursing his lips a little before counting on his fingers. "Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Three days."

"Right."

"Are you coming with us?"

Wait. What had he been talking about before? "...To what?"

"To the _baseball game!"_ he practically yells.

"Indoor voice," she automatically says.

David scowls at her. "I'LL BE VERY VERY QUIET AND NOT SAY ANYTHING ELSE TO **MY MEAN MOMMY!"** he bellows before clamping both hands over his mouth and stomping to the next row of seats. He throws himself onto the furthest one from her with an exasperated sigh.

The woman in the next seat gives Juliet a scathing look, although Juliet's not sure whether it's due to David's behavior or Juliet's own inability to Pay Attention to Her Own Offspring. She's frozen where she is for a moment, her face flushed with shame, and then a loudspeaker voice cuts in to inform them Flight 415 is on the ground, will be pulling up to the gate in just a few moments.

* * *

David puts on a big show of enthusiasm for Jack in the car, and Jack, for his part, looks a lot less exhausted than she's used to seeing him. At a red light, he slides his hand over her knee, whispering under David's chatter," You OK?"

She nods, still looking straight ahead, then jerks the wheel to avoid a pothole, only she pulls a little too hard, and the whole car shimmies.

"Hey! You sleep at all last night?" His voice is louder now, and even David quiets down in the back seat.

"Last-minute emergency."

"So that's a no? Pull over, I'll drive."

"Jack, I'm - "

"No, you're not. Pull over!"

She does as she's told, into the shoulder of the overpass they're on. Truth be told, he probably has a good point. In Ann Arbor, he always walked to work. Awake for 24 hours? 30? At least he wasn't behind the wheel.

They meet at the front of the Volvo, heat emanating from the hood. "You should have said something!"

"I'm supposed to be getting used to this."

Jack's forehead wrinkles up as he gets increasingly intense/freaked out/concerned. "Not if you're putting David at risk! You couldn't have gotten Rachel to drive? Or I could have taken a cab!"

"It was just a pothole," she hisses, but Jack's distracted now, his gaze diverted to the shoulder, to the railing of the overpass. He frowns, then squints, craning his neck like he's trying to see over the edge, his chest rising and fulling like he's just run for miles. "What?" she asks, but now a police car is pulling up behind them. _Shit._

Jack turns reluctantly, as though he was just about to say something really, really important.

The police officer gets out of the patrol car - neat dark uniform, perfectly creased slacks - and struts over to them, chest puffed up like like a bird's. "What seems to be the trouble here, folks?"

Juliet can see Jack's getting his hackles up already, and she lays a hand on his arm. "Nothing, officer," she says before he has a chance. "I was a little tired and my husband offered to drive."

The officer narrows her eyes. She really looks ridiculously young in that uniform, younger than Juliet for sure. "You people think you could do that somewhere other than an overpass? That's a No Stopping sign right there. You want someone to crash right into the back of your car?"

Jack makes a strange noise next to her, sort of an _unghh..._ under his breath, and he must be thinking about David still in the back seat.

"No, officer," Juliet says.

Ms. Law & Order purses her lips. "License and registration, please."

Seriously? Seriously? She _could_ have just let them go, but instead this officer - Cortez, according to the ticket she writes out for Juliet - just had to take a little power trip. Must be nice.

Jack drives them home, Juliet wondering what he'd been trying to see, exactly, below that bridge.

* * *

In bed that night, Jack is very quiet and still beside her. Uncharacteristically so. Like he's trying to pretend he's _her_ or something. In the old days, Juliet probably woud just ask him about it, but now she's not so sure.

Instead, though, she rolls toward him, settling her head on his chest, her arm sliding across his stomach. He hesitates for just the slightest of moments before one arm comes up underneath her, wrapping around her back. His other hand reaches across to stroke her hair. He smells just the same as she remembers.

She closes her eyes against his chest, feeling her eyelashes brush against his T-shirt. So what if he hasn't been able to make her come in six months. So _what._ That's probably her own fault, anyway. And he's still her husband. He's still here.

* * *

**Ann Arbor, May 16, 1996**

Jack finally sounds like he's asleep, and Juliet rolls over, out of bed and into the dim light of the hall. She's not a fan of the dark right now, can still remember the closeness of those yellow walls, and that keeps her moving.

The bottle of rum had looked like it was the only thing untouched in their liquor supply as of this morning when she'd checked (discreetly, she hoped). Jack hates rum. But now it's missing from its spot on top of the fridge, and there's a light on outside their kitchen door.

Outside, Rachel is sitting on the cracked top step, the bottle tucked between her feet. She jumps a little when the door opens behind her. "Hey," she says awkwardly.

Juliet doesn't speak at first, just steps forward and waits for her sister to slide over. Once she's sitting next to her, she reaches over for the bottle, takes a long swig and doesn't put it down.

"That my rum?"

Rachel takes it back, raises it to her lips. "It was," she answers after her own long pull. The giggle sounds a little deranged.

Juliet snorts, reaches for the bottle again. This time she takes three long swallows, one after the other, feeling it burn all the way down. She feels the warmth spreading through her body, and it's the first real thing she's felt in at least a few days.

Rachel bumps her knee against Juliet's. "Should you be drinking? The radiation..."

"Fuck the radiation," Juliet cuts her off, noting with satisfaction the surprise on her sister's face.

But Rachel doesn't respond, and they sit in silence for a few minutes, trading the bottle back and forth.

"He thought I was somebody else," Juliet finally says. Her voice sounds hoarse.

"...What?" Rachel turns to face her, her forehead furrowed in confusion.

"DeGroot. He thought I was... this other person. We had the same name."

Rachel's eyes widen now, her eyebrows shooting up, forehead smoothing out. "Wh-" Her word cuts itself off in a half-inhale, half-gasp, and she swallows heavily. "What, um - who did he think you were?"

"A mechanic who could do surgery," Juliet says dryly. "Who was older than me, even though this was back in the '70s."

"The - what? The '70s?" Rachel twists up her face, her nose wrinkling. She looks genuinely baffled at this point. "What are you - "

"He said I was a member of some island tribe," she says with a bitter laugh. "And I showed up there, and pretended I'd shipwrecked there, and stayed and started working as a mechanic."

"But in the '70s?"

Juliet shrugs. "In, get this, another lifetime. As though our lives all happened before, and time reset itself, or we all were reincarnated, or - " She exhales, exasperated, reaching for the bottle again even though her stomach is starting to rebel. Or maybe that's her brain.

Juliet drinks again. She could have died because someone was being a crazy idiot.

And she actually swishes the liquor around in her mouth before swallowing this time. It's not like she actually believes DeGroot's crazy theories. It's just that she can't stop thinking about them.

Rachel, however, has her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms crossed tightly over them. She's staring straight ahead.

"Rach?"

Her sister turns her head, staring and squinting at Juliet. She seems to be having trouble breathing evenly. How much of this rum had she drunk before Juliet got out here?

"He was just... It's OK. He was crazy, I get that," Juliet tries to reassure her. "I'm all right now. It doesn't matter. I just... Jack would freak out if I told him all that. And I had to tell someone who wasn't, you know. A detective. Someone from my own life."

Rachel's shivering a little now. It's chilly for a summer night. Juliet drinks again, looking across the damp backyard, the dew in the grass. It's dark out there, the weak porch light only reaching the small area around the patio. "You want to go inside?"

Her sister doesn't move. "What else did he say?"

"He said that I, um..." She struggles to remember his exact words. "That we tried to set off a bomb. A hydrogen bomb? I think. And I fell down a..." Mine shaft? No, he'd just said a hole, right? Why did she think mine shaft? _Magnet tar pit,_ she remembers Kurt Cobain wailing into a microphone once upon a time, during that concert where Rachel passed out.

"A what?" Rachel looks pale in this weak light.

"A - a hole, or something..." Juliet's feeling a little shaky herself now, and rolls her eyes.

"Well, you didn't," Rachel says shortly. The skin around her mouth tightens. Her eyes flicker away. "You have a family, and - and, you didn't."

"Well, I wouldn't be sitting here now if I had, right?" This is ridiculous. She should just go to sleep, feeling a little bit drunk now. She slaps her hands onto her knees. Wobbles a little as she stands. Maybe more than a little bit. "I'm a little... um... I'm going to go to bed."

Rachel's hand catches on her ankle. "I love you, you know."

_I love you. I love you so much._ Juliet would bend down, pat her sister's hand if she didn't feel so wobbly. They must have drank half that bottle. "I love you back," she finally says.

* * *

**Los Angeles, Late Fall 1996 continued**

All in all, it's been a good weekend. Friday, Jack and David went with the grandparents to Travel Town, then came home and played a four-person game of baseball with Rachel and Niall. Juliet got to hear all about it when she came home from work, the three of them in the kitchen for dinner alone. (Rachel and Niall had decided to go out to dinner - "You've barely had time to be a family yet this visit," Rachel had said before leaving, and Rachel is all gung ho about Juliet's Important Family, so sure.)

Saturday, the three of them made it out to the Santa Monica pier, except for the very first time, David's suddenly big enough and brave enough to want to ride the ferris wheel. Jack's eyes meet hers over David's head. "I can take him," he says.

"I, um - no, it's OK. Let's all go."

"You sure?"

She doesn't want David to go grow up to be afraid of things. And she'd even crawled out along that railroad bridge once upon a time and lived to tell, hadn't she? (She's been through a lot and lived to tell, really. _STOP THINKING ABOUT DR. DEGROOT._) Fear of heights? Whatever. It's not like - it's not like - it's not like DeGroot had said. She didn't... She rests her hand on the top of David's head; David twists up though, to look at her. "Yeah," she says.

Saturday night, the two of them go on a real date like Actual Grownups. Sushi at a so-hip-it-hurts place downtown, then a movie ("The Long Kiss Goodnight"), then drinks and dessert around the corner from the place where they'd gone on her 21st birthday, approximately eight million years ago. He smiles at her across the table, she smiles back, they order another round and then another (and then another), and they end up ditching the car downtown, taking a cab home. Stumble into her bedroom (their bedroom? not really, though), kissing, peeling off clothes, and... she can probably go through with this, right?

Except: A knock at the door. "Mommy, are you back?"

They freeze, panting on the bed, both of their shirts off, her fumbling at his belt buckle.

"Hey buddy, what's up? You need something?" they hear Rachel's voice in the hallway.

"Mommy! Are you in there?" David calls again, ignoring Rachel, and Juliet drops her head onto the pillow.

"Be right there," she manages.

(Jack is asleep by the time she returns.)

Sunday, she's working again, and Jack and David go to the ballgame. She wonders exactly how spoiled he'll end up from all this attention, all these Exciting Things that will probably happen in far less frequent quantities once Jack is out here and it goes back to All Work, All the Time.

But the hospital's given her the day off at the last minute today, Monday, and it's Jack's last day here. They have one new and final idea: a picnic at the water's edge down in Long Beach - too cold for swimming, not too cold for picnicking - and then the Aquarium of the Pacific.

When they walk in, David gapes at the overhead models in the atrium: a whale, a stringray, a cluster of seahorses. A dolphin. For just a moment in Juliet's mind, there he is, a baby still, big-eyed and dazzled by the motion of the mobile hanging over his crib.

They pay their entry, get a pamphlet, amble from room to room, David often running ahead. Schools of of tropical fish dart back and forth; air bubbles bounce up through brightly colored corals. A tunnel runs through a massive tank, sting rays flying over their heads. Juliet grins at their mouths on their pale undersides, how rays always look like they're both frowning and smiling drunkenly at the same time.

David's close up, watching a small vertical tank of brittle-looking sea horses. "They have sharks here, right?"

Juliet checks the pamphlet. "Dolphins, too," she says as David begins to wander to the next tank.

Right at that moment, though, there's - something - and she jerks her head up, finds Jack watching her a couple of feet away, and it feels like all the air has been sucked from the room, the ocean rushing in. She reaches out to a dark blue wall,planting her palm to steady herself, the cool clicks of other visitors' shoes on the concrete echoing around them.

Jack's eyes are dark, following her, and he moves closer to her to make room for a big, matching T-shirt-clad group working its way through the room.

She can feel his body heat they're so close, and suddenly a hot surge of desire rolls through her, a real one. Like all it would take would be for him to grab her right now, bend her over a table and plunge into her. Their breaths mingle, hot on each others' faces, and his fingers reach out to touch her waist. A gasp escapes her, her lips trembling and they inch closer to each other, using the crowd as an excuse, and then he's pressed against her, and she's shocked, or maybe not, to feel just how _ready_ he is for her, and her insides contract.

Except they're in public, they're in the middle of a fucking aquarium for god's sakes _(it doesn't matter who we were)_ and their kid will probably end up swimming with the whales if she doesn't look for him soon, but Jack's fingers are still digging into her hip, and a strangled-sounding groan rips its way out of her throat.

"We - have to - " she somehow gets out, searching through the crowd for David.

Jack swallows heavily. "I know."

Slowly she remembers how to be herself again, and they disengage. She leaves him there to collect himself, ambles through the room almost shaking with desire, and what the hell WAS that, IS this, it's just, she could swear that -

Somehow they make it through the rest of the day. Rachel's head bounces back between her and Jack during dinner at home that night, curious probably, because Juliet and Jack barely speak to each other. Juliet doesn't even know what she would _say_; every time she's tried to speak to him everything's come out stammering and stumbling.

Jack puts David to bed, and Juliet putters around her bedroom, listening listening listening. She slides a tape into the stereo, an old one, the Rolling Stones, waits standing in the room, stock still, the edge of the bed pressing against the backs of her legs. Like she's going to attack him the instant he walks through the door, or maybe the other way around, and finally she hears footsteps in the hallway, tenses up - and here he is, practically slamming the door, locking it behind him, and they're up on each other, magnets. Feeling like this is the most forbidden thing in the world, like they were on enemies on two different sides of some colossal made-up war.

He shoves her down on the bed, her legs flying up to wrap around him, and then he's practically ripping off her shirt, her bra.

Juliets's only half-aware of the stereo, the other people in the house, and has to hold back her cry when he finally pushes into her. As it is, she bites into his shoulder, silencing herself but eliciting a groan from him. And that only gets him moving faster, and she can't stop thinking about the aquarium, clutching at his shoulders, his hips, digging her fingers into his ass, and how somehow that aquarium feels, felt, like the most real place she's been in months, the most real _thing_ she's felt. As real as what they're doing right now.

He's moving faster now, that same determined look on his face she's so used to, because this is all familiar, right, it's SO familiar, so fucking good, even though the bed is creaking, and they can't _hear_ this, right?, it's not like anyone is listening or watching (it's not like there are monitors somewhere capturing their every move) - and she hisses his name, the feeling building inside of her like it's been hiding there for _months_, her entire body tensing up, and then it's all crashing over her as she tries to catch the frantic sounds in the back of her throat.

* * *

They lay side by side, not looking at each other, panting and sweaty, but Jack's hand finds hers. The lights are still on; they're still half-dressed, and he sits up to pull off his shirt finally.

He flops down next to her again, wiping the sweat off his face. "Did you - " he begins.

"Yeah," she breathes, shivering, still practically thrumming with it. "Oh _god, _yeah."

He squeezes her hand, and they lay there in silence for a few more seconds as their breathing evens out. And then: "I'm quitting my fellowship."

She should know everything that means, except her mind is still pretty much blank, she feels as sturdy as a jellyfish right now. But anyway, it means he's moving back, and - she's still gasping for air, and he is too. "Good," she finally answers, and rolls over to look at him.


	67. Good Enough

**Do you guys remember, on the show, that cute Other dude who was totally hitting on Juliet right before she tossed her canteen to James? I believe he's the same one who greeted her as she marched over to Ben's with his X-ray. The reason I ask is that he pops up here, for no particular reason except that I control this universe and decided to put him in.**

**You'll "recognize" him when he shows up.**

* * *

_Fate is not just whose cooking smells good,  
but which way the wind blows._

- Ani DiFranco, "Slide"

* * *

**January 1997**

David's hands haven't left the keys all day. Not from the moment that he stood from his balloon-decorated chair at breakfast, two days early since they couldn't bear to make him wait until his actual birthday on Monday. They couldn't give this to him and then tell him he had to go straight off to school. So today, Jack and Juliet told him he could find his biggest birthday present early by playing hot and cold.

David had narrowed his eyes, thinking. "It's not in my room, right, 'cause I already woke up there, and it's not in the kitchen. Unless it's really little."

"You're overthinking it," Jack said.

So David had approached the kitchen door.

"Warmer," Juliet said.

He stepped out into the hall, looking right and then left, and starting off in that direction.

"Cold," Jack said, and David went right.

"Warmer."

He hesitated at the stairs.

"Brr, freezing!"

He kept on down the hall as they guided him to the den, but as soon as they were close enough to see around the curve of the archway, he froze. Slowly, he turned and stared at them, his eyes as huge and blue as the sky before he let out a bellow of joy and ran into the room.

It's only a secondhand upright Steinway, affordable enough if he decides once he turns seven that soccer is more important, or coin collecting, or he wants to take Spanish lessons, or who even knows.

But now: "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" he yelled breathlessly, and he doubles back, throwing his arms around Juliet's waist, and then Jack's, before bolting to his new piano again, and mashing his hands into as many keys as he can possibly reach at once.

Now she and Jack stand in the doorway, his arm around her waist, trying not to be noticed. She bites her lips to keep from smiling too much as David plays.

* * *

**March 1997**

Sweat's creeping in under her scrubs. It's supposed to be cold in here, but somehow it feels too warm, and she's got the surgical gown over the scrubs, cap on her head, mask on her face. So many layers.

It's not cold enough in here.

Juliet's trying to exude an aura of calm, and she's not doing such a bad job of it, actually. For the past couple of weeks, they've had her doing gall bladder removals because they're so much simpler than C-sections. Smaller margin for error. Less at stake. Fewer "moving parts," so to speak.

She's probably done eight of them already.

This is her first appendectomy, though.

Finally the incision's done, and her eyes flicker over to meet the attending's. Dr. Conyers nods at her, spreading back the layers of tissue. She hesitates now. It just figures that as soon as she got comfortable with those gall bladders, they were going to have a patient present with appendicitis.

Should be no sweat, right?

Ha. She is way way too sweaty right now, somehow. It seems a little dark in here, like she wants someone to hold up an extra light, but she blinks and her vision clears, and it was nothing. Her hands want to shake but she knows how to hold them steady, her fingers seem to know just where to seek it out, and there it is, angry and inflamed. The scalpel slides through smooth as butter as she separates it from the surrounding tissues. As they'd expected, it hadn't ruptured yet.

The surgical nurse holds out a tray, and Juliet drops the appendix into it. It lands with a small sucking sound, and the second it leaves her fingers, a thrill runs through her. She did it.

No reason to get worked up about it.

Dr. Conyers smiles and nods, she stitches up the affected section of colon, stitches up all the layers, and somehow she doesn't feel so clammy anymore, because, hey. Sewing David's last Halloween costume was harder than this.

"Good job, doctor," he says at the end, and she smiles.

* * *

Gemma puts down her tea cup; her lips turn up as she fiddles with the paper wrapper around her muffin. "So."

Juliet tilts her head, sitting a little straighter in her chair, and her heart rate revs up even though she doesn't quite know why.

"I'm pregnant."

Juliet sucks in her breath. "Oh - " she begins, because is Gemma even seeing someone? She should have been paying closer attention. And then more practical matters flood her brain, and _oh no. Oh no. No no no no no. NO NO NO._ "You can - we can - "

Gemma closes her hand over Juliet's. "It's OK. You're gonna get this. I know you are."

"No! You have to leave. You know he'll let you, and - "

"Well, I mean... Yeah, he would let me go. But where would I go?"

Her face burns hot. That Ben would let Gemma go, and not her. She slaps her palms onto the table top. "The real world!"

Gemma flinches and recovers. "I don't even know what that is anymore," she scoffs. "I've been here since I was seven, Juliet. You think I'm just going to..." She shakes her head. "Besides, I know you. I trust you. You - "

Juliet's mouth feels like it's full of sawdust; her arms slide back down to her sides. "Don't you understand? It's not safe here! I don't know if I can - "

There it is again, that beaming smile, and it's not fair. It's not fucking FAIR. In a normal place, they'd both be thrilled. But as it is, Gemma's smile is unfailingly confident right now, even if it's just for a moment, and Juliet wonders exactly what percentage is all an act. All of it? She needs to figure out how to do that herself. Make her patients feel safe again. Pretend like she's confident, even here. Even if it's all an act. Juliet grips the edges of her chair.

Gemma, though, has enough confidence to share. "Can we go to the Staff? I want to see how far along I am. And you wait. You'll figure it out. I'm gonna be your big breakthrough."

Juliet jerks awake with a start, drenched in sweat, the alarm clock blaring in her ear. Next to her, Jack groans, and she smacks the off button, peeling off her T-shirt. The cold air hits her sweaty skin, turning her body into a sea of goosebumps.

Jack shifts slightly, a hand reaching out from under the covers for one of her bare breasts.

"Hey!" she says.

"You're all..." he realizes.

"Sweaty."

"You take off your shirt, I can't always help myself. Sorry. You feeling OK?" He sits up now, too.

"Yeah. I'm... I think I just had a dream about Gemma."

"A bad dream?"

Juliet tries to remember the dream, twisting up her face. Gemma had been really excited about something horrible, and that's mainly what she can recall at this point. "I don't know. I guess I can't remember."

"Aren't you going running with her this morning?"

"Yeah," she says, and gets out of bed to search for her sneakers.

* * *

**July 1997 **  
**Coronado Island**

They've been here for a week, and Juliet's not entirely sure why they have to ever leave. Seven days so far, two more to go. Just the three of them in a little rented cottage across the street from the ocean, barbecuing every night in the sandy backyard, digging holes in the san. Boogie boarding. Catching lightning bugs when the street lights come on. Playing games every night in the TV-less living room.

It's the first time she and Jack have both had a week off in... well, probably at least two years, she thinks as she wiggles underneath a wave that crashes over her head, opening her eyes into the green and pulling herself through the water with long strokes, holding her breath until, with a blurble, her head breaks the surface.

Juliet keeps most of her face underwater, standing just straight enough so that her eyes are out of the water, and she watches. Over on the sand, Jack and David are mixing "cement" (sand and water) in a pail to make more castles with the colorful plastic molds. The area around their chairs and blanket and umbrella is only half surrounded by the fortress (probably all of four inches tall, but still), and they have a lot of work to do before lunch.

After all, Jack does need to be goal-oriented, even on vacation, and still underwater, her mouth curves into a smile.

Finally she emerges from the water, blushing furiously when Jack turns to watch her. This is all Rachel's fault, Juliet thinks, halfway hanging her head, feeling her smile turn goofy. Rachel had been over at the house when Juliet started packing, and of course she'd just had to give her a hard time about only packing one-pieces.

"I'm sorry, HOW old are you?"

"In case I need to remind you, I've had a child, thank you?"

Rachel had held up one of Juliet's bathing suits, making a face. "You're not even 30, for Christ's sake. Mom wore bikinis unless she was, like, almost 40."

"Yeah, and I don't remember Mom having stretchmarks."

"You got stretchmarks, lemme see." Rachel, sitting on the bed, had crossed her arms.

Juliet stared at her sister, not even believing she was actually going to do whether sister was asking. "No."

"It's not like I haven't seen... just show me."

"Fine." She pulled up her shirt, stopping right underneath where her bra began.

"That? That's nothing." Rachel bit her lip.

"What are you doing?" David was standing at the door to the bedroom, and Juliet dropped her shirt, but Rachel was silent now.

Juliet turned to face her son. "I was showing her the marks I got when you were in my tummy."

"Marks?"

"Because when you were growing in there, my tummy stretched faster than my skin wanted it to."

"Really? Gross. I grew too fast?"

She smiled then, thinking of those anxious weeks in the hospital. "No, you grew at just the right amount. We wanted you to grow."

David considered this and seemed to accept it. He loves hearing about when he was born, after all. "Can I see?"

Juliet looked over at her sister. "Do you see what you started?"

Rachel shrugged.

So she'd lifted her shirt again, and David stepped up close, inspecting. This was one of those surreal moments she went through sometimes, how this possibly could have been the way her life went, and one moment it seemed like he was the frantic little being jabbing at her from the inside, and now somehow he's six years old and staring at her stomach. "OK. I'm hungry."

Juliet rolled her eyes. "We're going to go out in a few minutes. Can you wait until then?"

"But I'm hungry _now_."

Rachel stood up, folding a pair of shorts that had been draped over the edge of the bed. "David, would you please tell your mom that if she wears a two-piece bathing suit, no one is going to think she looks bad?"

David hopped up on the bed. "Nope. You're OK! Can I have a granola bar?"

Rachel put her arm around him. "Let's just go now. And after we eat, I'm going to make your mom find a decent bathing suit."

Well, Juliet guesses they succeeded, because Jack is ogling her in her ridiculous bikini, and yeah, she feels a little bit self-conscious, but she also kind of likes that he's staring at her. She's even managed to get a tan this week, shockingly enough, and that helps too.

He hands her a towel as she flops down next to them, his eyes laughing at her, the way she's kind of hanging her head to hide her smile. She takes the towel gratefully, wrapping it around herself. They've both changed a lot, and in other ways, they haven't changed one bit.

Jack goes back to his sand castle construction project with David. Juliet manages to read four pages of her book before David gives her an assignment.

* * *

She's in a deli on Orange Avenue, her eyes still adjusting to the comparative dimness after hours in the sun. There's a sarong wrapped around her hips but otherwise she's just wearing her bathing suit, rummaging through one of the refrigerated cases for Snapples, or ooh, they have that Arizona iced tea in the pretty bottles. There's a guy rummaging through the next case over, pulling out a couple of six packs, and... wait a second. He's looking straight through two layers of glass, his door and hers, but he is totally checking her out.

Wow.

Juliet pretends not to notice, because seriously, what do people even do about things like that these days?

She pulls out two Snapples, one iced tea, closes the door and goes back up to the counter to see if her number's been called. They're on 15; her ticket is 16. She hovers around the counter, watching as the deli workers wrap subs in wax paper, and thick white paper around that to catch escaping oil and vinegar and oregano.

And there he is again. Blue eyes maybe, wavy brown hair. He's waiting in line to order, but his eyes drift down to her hips, then up to her chest, her face, and he smiles at her. It's been a long time since anyone's looked at her like this (or maybe she's just not been paying attention? or not prancing around in a bikini before?), and bizarrely, she finds herself meeting his eyes. (She's just _looking_, OK?)

The edges of her mouth turn up a little; her lips part.

"Mom! Can we get this?"

She jerks her eyes away from him. David's right next to her, holding up a bag of barbecue potato chips.

"Sixteen!" the deli clerk calls.

"Sure," she tells David, and steps up to get their sandwiches. When she sneaks a peek over again, the blue-eyed guy is reading the headlines of the magazines in the newsstand.

Well, that was fun while it lasted.

* * *

**August 1997**

Juliet takes one last look in the trunk of the Volvo. Lawn chairs, blanket, cooler. She should probably call Rachel and Tahlia before going to pick them up to see if one of them has sunscreen, but screw it, they have to stop off for ice, anyway, and she slams the trunk. Otherwise they're good to go.

It's only 9 a.m. and already the humidity is coming up around the front yard of their new rented house, zapping the last of the dew from the grass and tightening up her curls. Her hair is way, way too long again now. Too much work and cramming in day trips and vacation wherever they can, and other than the damn toothache in the back of her head, she couldn't be happier about any part of her life these days.

Just as she heads back inside to say goodbye to Jack and David, though, Jack appears in the front door, his face tight and drawn, and she freezes on the front steps.

"What's up?"

"I have to go in."

"What? Why?"

"Two-car collision - they need me."

Her whole body sags. "But Rachel and..." She realizes Jack's holding his car keys already, and anyway, it's not like some car accident victims exactly care that she and her sisters were planning to drive down to Irvine today for the fucking Lilith Fair. "All right."

"Maybe my mom can take him," Jack suggests as he brushes past her. "I'm sorry," he calls over his shoulder.

"It's OK," she calls back. _Goddammit._

Inside, David's sprawled on the living room rug watching Saturday morning cartoons, seemingly oblivious. Good, because one of the last thing a six-year-old should overhear is how his mom is trying to pawn him off for the day.

She calls Margo, but the Shephards' house phone rings until the answering machine picks up, and she leaves a message. Then Juliet hesitates. She and Jack had shelled out more than $300 apiece last month for a pair of unbelievably small StarTAC cell phones, but Margo's still cruising around with the I'm Not a Doctor, I'm Just Married to One car phone. Juliet dials that number, only to leave a message on that line, too.

Rachel is suitably disappointed when Juliet calls.

"You guys can still have fun," Juliet says. "I'll give you my ticket and you can invite someone else."

"We wanted to go with _you!"_

"Well, I wanted to go with you too, but..." She rubs the side of her face where it's slightly swollen. Margo's going to be babysitting next Thursday so Juliet can finally get her wisdom teeth out. About damn time.

"I don't know, maybe we should just bring him."

"What? We don't have a ticket for him."

"Scalpers do, I bet."

"Don't you think he'd be miserable?"

"He likes music," Rachel says defensively. "If he's really bored or it's too hot... or it turns into a lesbian orgy or whatever, we'll leave. Bring your bathing suits and we could go to Long Beach or something if it's still early enough."

"Hold on." She cups her hand over the phone. "David?" she calls through the cutout in the kitchen wall.

"Whaaaat." David doesn't turn away from his cartoons.

"Do you want to go to the music festival with Aunt Rachel and Aunt Tahlia and me?"

He turns from the screen then. "Really?"

* * *

Granted, David's a little confused by the fact that all the performers are women, and Rachel tries to explain about gender discrimination in the music industry before she laughs and gives up.

They mill around, catching Juliana Hatfield on the secondary stage, and buy some chicken-on-a-stick, hummus and pitas, sitting down on the lawn a bit early, to people-watch. Tahlia pops on her I'm Younger Than These Boring Old Married People sunglasses, scoping the crowd for the very few dudes in attendance (who are pretty much all accompanying girlfriends, or are of dubious sexuality, but whatever).

Juliet opens the cooler, distributing bottled water and apple slices like a Boring Old Married Mom. Rachel evidently grows tired of people-watching and starts flipping through one of those techie magazines she's always inexplicably reading. The cover of this one features that guy who went back to Apple recently and always wears black turtlenecks. OK, that's even more boring than apple slices.

"I thought I was staying home with Daddy today," David says suddenly. "How come he had to go to work?"

"Some people were in a car accident, and he had to go fix them up."

David eats the skin off an apple slice before biting into the fleshy part. "Is he going to make them all better?"

Rachel looks over at Juliet like Juliet's talking about the tooth fairy now.

But: "Yes," Juliet tells him, and believes it.

* * *

David is bubbling over with excitement most of the car ride home. Juliet had wanted to leave while Sarah McLaughlan was still playing, pleading bedtime necessity. Rachel has always been kind of amused by Sarah McLaughlan, something about some sad animal commercial or whatever (Juliet totally doesn't get that at all, must have missed something on TV at one point).

Anyway, Tahlia and David had overruled them, and now they've already dropped off Tahlia at her parents' in Tustin. Rachel's driving them back north through the darkness and David's chattering in the back about the notable pianists of the day, Fiona Apple and Paula Cole, and Suzanne Vega on the violin (or fiddle? what's the difference?). He's excited about his new "Tidal" album poster even though Juliet's pretty sure that the first time one of his friends comes over and teases him about it, it's going to end up under the bed.

(Rachel had told him very seriously that it was one of the top 100 albums of the '90s.)

Juliet, though, is resting the side of her face on the cool pane of window glass.

"You OK?" Rachel murmurs.

"Yeah, it's just - the wisdom tooth thing."

"What?"

"That's why I kept taking Tylenol."

"I thought you had... like, a headache or cramps or something."

"Nope. I'm getting them all taken out Thursday, finally."

"But I thought you... Who's taking care of David?"

"Grandma!" David announces from the back seat.

"But I thought you - didn't you have them taken out your senior year of college, or...?" Rachel trails off again, and Juliet glances over at her sister.

"No, they wanted to, but... I didn't have the money, and it wasn't that bad. They didn't start bothering me again until recently."

Rachel squints ahead at the highway, the shiny silver guardrail racing along with them. "Oh," she says. "That's right." She starts shaking her head. "Jeez. Sometimes, I swear... this all gets so confusing."

Juliet has no idea what her sister means, exactly, but it's been a long day, after all.

* * *

Jack comes in to bed somewhere around dawn, and she probably wouldn't have registered his presence except that he's positively reeking of booze.

She can hear him dropping his clothes on the floor, piece by piece, until he clumsily slides into bed.

The smart, self-preserving part of her would pretend that she's still sound asleep because she doesn't have to be at work until 9 today. The wifely part wants to know why her husband smells like liquor at - she cracks her eyelids open a fraction at the bedside clock - 5:16 a.m. And the doctor part of her is just anxious and (maybe?) sympathetic.

Keeping her eyes closed, she bumps her knee against his.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Did you make it to the concert?" His words are slurred, and he doesn't move.

She hesitates. "Yeah. We actually brought David with us. He loved it."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Jack doesn't say anything for a long time then. Long enough that she starts to drift back to sleep.

"I was doing a spinal surgery on a 16-year-old kid, a girl." His voice floats through her brain, and she feels her consciousness resurfacing.

"And at the end, after 13 hours, I was closing her up and I, I accidentally ripped her dural sac. Shredded the base of the spine where all the nerves come together, membrane as thin as tissue."

He's talking now like she doesn't know what the dural sac is, like he's forgotten she's a doctor too, but he's drunk and it doesn't matter and she's afraid where this is going. Her heart's racing; her stomach twists.

"So it ripped open," he mumbles, shifting next to her, "and the nerves just spilled out of her like angel hair pasta, spinal fluid flowing out of her and I..." She reaches over to take his hand, turning her head to watch in in the dim light of their bedroom, but his eyes are closed anyway.

"And the terror was... just so crazy. So real. And I knew I had to deal with it. So I just made a choice. I'd let the fear in, let it take over, let it do its thing, but only for five seconds... That's all I was going to give it."

His words are slurring worse now. How much did he have to drink? And where? At home? A bar? He didn't drive home, did he? No, he probably took a cab. Shit. She's going to have to carve time out of her morning to drive him back to his car before she leaves for work. If he's even sober by then. No. He can take a cab back later. She forces herself to pay attention again. She's being selfish, making this about her when this is about the patient. It's not even about Jack drinking too much. Not really. He's been talking about counting...

"Then it was gone," he's saying. (Wait, what was gone?) "I went back to work and sewed her up."

"And is she going to be OK?"

"Don't know yet."

"These things happen, Jack. No matter what, you did the best you could."

He rolls away from her, dropping her hand in the process. "Well, I don't think it was good enough."

* * *

Juliet's rushing out the door with David in front of her, her arms full of dirty dry cleaning because she couldn't find a plastic bag (and they're already fifteen minutes behind schedule) when David freezes and she almost trips right over him. "Mommy, wait, I forgot my goggles!"

"No time!" She nudges gently on his back, trying to get him moving again, but the house phone rings. Juliet pauses for just long enough that David ducks and doubles back around her, running back into the house.

Perfect. Juliet follows him back inside, dropping the dry cleaning and lifting the kitchen phone. "Hello?"

"Juliet, it's Christian."

"Hey, what's going on?" She looks at her watch. "We're just on our way over there."

"Oh, I'm actually at the hospital. Jack there?"

"He's asleep."

"When you see him... could you tell him..." Christian heaves a sigh. Juliet shifts from one foot to the other, trying to listen for David's progress upstairs. Before Christian even finishes his sentence, David's thundering back downstairs again, holding up his goggles triumphantly.

"Found 'em!"

"Tell him what?" Juliet says into the phone, then cups her hand over it. "Go out to the car and I'll be right there."

"Tell him the girl can move her toes."

Despite everything, the pile of dirty clothes at her feet, the stack of unread medical journals on the counter, David outside inexplicably putting on his goggles _now_, and an exhausted, hungover Jack upstairs, Juliet smiles.

"I'll write him a note," she says.

* * *

**Please leave a review! You'll make my day if you do. **


	68. Anywhere She Wants

**No, I'm not dead, and yes, I'm back! I got really really busy but I am determined to finish this. We're up to 1998 now, so imagine this chapter is set to "Tubthumping." No, really, please don't do that.**

**One reminder, because it comes up in this chapter again, but it was first mentioned a long time ago in this story: According to Rachel's notebook after she remembered, Julian attended Northern Arizona University (NAU) in the original timeline.  
**

**So here's part one of another two-part chapter. Yes, I keep doing these.**

**Please leave a review at the end! Even if it's just to tell me you're still reading! They provide inspiration/encouragement and will help me keep going. And if you don't, the next chapter is just going to be Chumbawamba lyrics...  
**

* * *

_I teeter between tired _  
_and really, really tired._

- Ani DiFranco, "Swan Dive"

* * *

**June 13, 1998**  
**1 a.m.  
**

If Juliet actually cared, she would have gone to her 10-year high school reunion tonight.

You know, if she actually cared.

Instead, she's pretty sure that everyone she _actually_ cares about is here in L.A., not Florida, and it doesn't matter who ignored her in the cafeteria and mocked her in the hallways. Because there's a white coat lying across the back seat of her car out in the parking lot, and her son is asleep at home, and her husband is... well, fine, probably still at work. And her sister is safe and healthy and -

The bartender nods over at them, sleeves not rolled far up enough, one of them soaked with the remnants of some kind of fruity red drink. He raises an eyebrow. "Another round?"

Juliet slides her eyes over to the person sitting at the next stool.

Another reason she's glad she didn't go? Because there's this interesting development right here. Because sometimes the universe isn't content with letting you sit back and skip your high school reunion, is it? Nope. Not when it can throw someone else from your past right into your path.

She finishes the last of her drink and smiles. "I think we could go for another."

* * *

**Earlier...**

There are some days when she thinks everything's worked out far better than she could have ever hoped.

This is not quite one of those days.

Instead, today started off as one of those days nice people aren't supposed to have: the kind where she wants to pack up everything she possibly can into the back of the Volvo, fill the gas tank and just see how far she can get.

Which is ridiculous and unfair, since as far as she can get - without getting on a plane or boat or... submarine(?) - is probably to her high school reunion in Florida, and no, she's not going _there. _

Med school was punishing enough; she doesn't need to sign up for more torture in a high school gym with people who probably don't even remember her.

The day starts early, as early as possible. That's the kicker: Things wouldn't seem so difficult if sleep weren't so ridiculously hard to get; she feels practically conned out of it.

Last night's glorious 18-hour shift had gone on well past midnight, and by the time she'd collapsed into bed, it was close to 2 a.m. Jack had already promised he'd deal with David this morning. So when the alarm goes off, but then Jack hits the fucking _snooze_ button - _twice _- she'd ended up kicking him under the covers.

Now there's knocking on the door. "Mommmm..."

Juliet groans, rolling over onto her stomach, pulling the pillow over her head to block and the noise and light. David's voice goes on: something about him spilling the milk for his cereal and she'd said to use wet paper towels when he spills but there _aren't_ any paper towels and_ Mommmm..._

"Come on, Jack," she mutters into the mattress, _come on, you son of a bitch, get UP, _and she weakly kicks at him again, her toes smacking shallowly into his bare calf before Jack's side of the bed rises as he finally, _finally_ pushes himself off, padding across the floor. He and David whisper at the door for what seemed like an eternity before they both go downstairs.

_Thank you, thank you, thank you._

She dozes for awhile, ignoring (with varying amounts of success) Jack's return, the sounds of the shower in the master bath, the rooting through his dresser, the sound of clothes being pulled out, the door closing behind him again. Her eyes hurt.

Then, what seemed like only minutes later: "Juliet," he whispers.

She presses her face back into the mattress, the pillow still over her head. "What," she mouths against the sheet.

"Where are David's cleats?"

Juliet's going to kill him. _Kill_ him. She's going to find... some kind of weapon, or... for some reason, half-asleep, her hand flails back, to the back waistband of her shorts like she can find something there to zap him into silence.

And really, the slightly-more-awake part of her brain insists, Jack's only trying to handle David this morning because of the fight they'd had last week and, and maybe that's not fair either, but - "They're on top of the dryer," she mumbles.

A long pause. Jack doesn't move. "His soccer cleats, or his softball cleats? Because - "

"Soccer," she cuts him off, her eyes still closed. _Didn't you look at the toes, because you would be able to tell, because even I can tell, and my dad took us on FREAKING NATURE WALKS instead of playing sports with us._

"...Doesn't he have softball today?"

She reaches up and slides the pillow from her head, angling her face to look at him. Her cheek is tender; the imprint from the sheet must be on her face. Classy. "Jack. It's Friday. He has. Soccer. On. Fridays. You are not taking. Him. To. Softball." Her face hit the sheets again, her eyes slamming shut.

"Sorry," he whispers, which basically only serves to make her feel guilty. Which is really what she was aiming for: 1.) Wake up. 2.) Be mean to husband who is trying to do something nice. 2a.) Even if his reasoning is just as much for himself as for her.

_I'm sorry,_ she wants to say in return, but instead the central air conditioner rumbles on in the master bedroom, in the too-big, too-fancy rental house they'd landed themselves in this spring. More money than they know what to do with all of a sudden, paying off Juliet's loans from undergrad at a fairly good clip, socking more away to buy their own place, something better than a starter home. And Jack had hemmed and hawed over new cars for almost two months when she could tell he really wanted the Mercedes, but god _forbid_ he buy the same kind of car his father drove, and...

Floating somewhere in her sleep-deprived thoughts, the sound of the closing bedroom door barely permeates. Even so, real slumber eludes her after that.

She _tries_, lying diagonally, rolling over into the space Jack had vacated. But that only makes her think of when she slept on the wrong side of the bed in that little yellow house - apartment, _apartment_- in, in, in... in _Detroit,_ and then she's really awake, and shivering, clammy with the central air still rattling.

* * *

By the time she meets Gemma for lunch out in Santa Monica, Juliet is still mostly awake.

And, lunch? Is technically fabulous: beach view, French food, hello. Juliet hasn't seen Gemma in probably three months - hell, she hasn't even seen _Rachel_ in weeks, and that wasn't even Juliet's fault - for some reason she and Niall hadn't held their usual Memorial Day barbecue, and Rachel always seems to have some kind of excuse for not seeing her.

Regardless, at least Gemma seems happy to see her; she's bubbling over with excitement over a new boyfriend, and the butterflies she gets when she sees him, blah, and how amazing the sex is, blah, and how they go hiking and biking and river running up in Topanga, and then the weekend trip to Palm Springs they're planning, and blah blah blah...

"That's fantastic," Juliet's saying for probably the seventh time, and "I'm so happy for you," because she is, really, she is, Gemma deserves this.

Except, here she sits, neatly bisecting strawberry pieces with her fork and trying to ignore a hot surge of jealousy.

Because she remembers times like that. When it felt like everything in the world was still ahead of her. Not that she and Jack had all that much time and freedom after a certain, very obvious point, but there was still that excitement, back when they'd moved in together, when they'd gotten engaged.

That sense of everything beginning. And all right, so she's only 28 - so's Gemma - and officially she knows there is still so, so much that's ahead of her... but... but what?

The cynical part of Juliet's brain informs her that what's ahead of her is more work, and not enough sleep, and one last, final grueling year of residency officially beginning next month. And then trying to find a job and still having to do more than her share around the house, and fighting about when is the right time to have a baby.

(_How about never,_ the tiniest, bitchiest part of her keeps whispering.)

Gemma's still talking: "Yeah, I mean, it's all great, except when he likes to handcuff me to the bed and dress up like a French maid."

Juliet's hand stills, the coffee cup halfway to her mouth. "Please tell me you're joking."

"So you _are_ paying attention."

"Of course I'm paying attention." She hesitates briefly, then remembers the mid-air coffee cup. Takes a long, long sip, mentally encouraging the caffeine to do its work.

But the coffee isn't that hot anymore, and then here's their waiter, and she makes eye contact with him. He brings a new French press, so she distracts herself with pushing down the plunger, offering Gemma coffee, pouring out her own, mixing in milk and sugar, stirring, tasting, more milk, more stirring, tasting again.

Gemma stares at her throughout this, like maybe she's picked up this skill from Juliet after all this time, and Juliet tells herself to think about the breeze coming off the water and nothing else.

Finally, though, she can't take it anymore, and she glances up at Gemma, whose face softens. "So how's life?" Gemma says simply.

"It's fine. But - " _But no one's vacuumed in two weeks, and it's probably been longer than that since we last had sex, and -  
_

"But?"

"I'm just... tired." And she knows she's probably sitting here sulking like a teenage girl over the fight she and Jack had last week (LAST WEEK! she needs to just get over it already), so she forces her face into something close to neutral.

And so what if Juliet wonders when the hell she's going to get to go hiking and biking and river running, or plan sexy little getaways to Palm Springs or wherever she wants. So what.

(It's not still supposed to be this messy and confusing, is it?)

"Maybe you two just need to get away," Gemma finally says. "Somewhere tropical, you know? Just the two of you."

"What, like a deserted island?"

"Well, not literally. I don't think you could order from the J. Crew catalog on a deserted island."

Juliet laughs a little. "Then forget the whole thing."

"So howww do you feel..." Gemma begins, and Juliet braces herself, until she goes on: "...about adding some wine to this brunch?"

Her body relaxes, almost sinking against her chair. The smile comes automatically. The breeze from the water on her face, the sun sinking into every cell. Not every fight has to Mean Something. And she doesn't have to be at work until 6 tonight, and then only until midnight. Gemma's not trying to get more out of her than she can give. "Actually, I feel quite good about that."

* * *

Too bad the effects of a relaxing brunch don't have a longer half-life, though. She gets back to the house to see Jack pacing in the driveway, car keys in his hands. "Where were you?" he demands.

"At lunch? With Gemma?" He knows this.

Jack runs a hand through his hair, aggravated. "Well, I just got called in, and you weren't answering your cell."

"The battery just died."

"What if _your_ hospital - "

"They'd _page_ me. I have to be there at 6 anyway, what am I supposed to -"

"I called my mother, she'll be over at 5:30." Jack heaves an enormous sigh. They even finish each other's sentences when they're squabbling. _Jesus. _He turns toward the car. "David's in the house," he says over his shoulder, unlocking the Mercedes. "They had cupcakes after practice for someone's birthday, so - "

"Perfect," she mutters. Sugar rush-induced cranky-pants session: coming right up.

* * *

David's in the house all right, treating the couch like a trampoline. "Hey, hey, hey!" she exclaims, catching him mid-jump. "Let's go outside, all right?"

His lower lip puffs out as he wriggles away, still standing on the couch. "I wanna go to Cameron's."

"Get down from the couch first."

His forehead is sweaty, his hair rumpled. He's a skinny little boy now, she sees this more than ever. Not a chubby baby, not a round-bellied toddler, his legs long enough that, with him standing on the couch like this, they can just about see eye-to-eye.

Juliet stares at him calmly, not saying anything more, and finally he buckles his knees, flopping down into a sitting position with a bounce.

"Can I go to Cameron's or not?"

"Well, you can't just invite yourself over there. That's not polite. Why don't you have him come over here and you can play in the backyard."

"I wanna go to _Cameron's,"_ he whines. "He has N64. Why can't _we_ have N64?"

"Because we don't play video games in this house," Juliet says for approximately the 815th time this month. She's on the verge of getting that particular message printed on a T-shirt at this point. "There's lots of other things to do."

David scowls, slouching back again against the couch. "_Grandma_ would get it for me. If I asked."

What's she even supposed to say to that? He's right. Yet here she is arguing with a seven-year-old. "Well, too bad you're stuck with me, then," she says, even though she's recoiling before she's even done speaking.

David heaves himself off the couch, stalking past her and into the den. She hears the crash of piano keys, angry and discordant, as David smacks both his hands into them.

"Hey!" She follows him then, standing in the doorway. "You're not being very nice today."

"Neither are _you!"_ he retorts. "You're too busy anyway. You wouldn't even play N64 with me if we had it. That's why you won't get it for me."

_Dad's busy too,_ she wants to say. Doesn't. Because David's right, but she also managed to do something with a friend for the first time in forever today, and he's being cranky and obnoxious about it.

"What if we go to the park with the tire swings?"

David's poking at middle C now, not looking at her. "Like right now?"

She's still holding her car keys, holds them up. In reality, what he probably needs is a timeout and a bath and a nap, but there's this whole memory of growing up ignored by her own parents, and... "Yeah. Like right now."

* * *

They're back around 4, dirt on their knees, and her feet in open sandals are probably an actual biohazard right now, but David is happy again and more than a little tired, and she's kinda sorta hoping he'll pass out on the couch while she showers and gets ready for work. But Rachel's car(? !) is in the driveway, Rachel herself nowhere to be found.

O...K?

David screws up his face. "Is Aunt Rachel here?"

"I don't know. I guess so." Juliet unlocks the door. "Rach?" How the hell did she get in? Juliet's not going to have time to get him in the bath before she leaves; she'll have to get Margo to do it.

Rachel is sitting, half-perched on the living room couch, her eyes very bright. "Hey."

David runs up to hug her, and she puts her arm around him, but Juliet approaches more slowly. Had she given Rachel keys for their new place? She doesn't remember doing that. "Uh... hey. How'd you - "

Her sister holds up the spare key, the one normally tucked under the stone rabbit on the front steps. "I figured out your complicated gizmo."

"And it only took you a month?"

Rachel looks guilty. "I'm sorry I haven't been around. Uh..." She cuts her eyes over to David.

"Hey, buddy, could you give us a few minutes?"

David hesitates, wiggling at his loose tooth, glancing between them. "OK," he finally relents, but Rachel catches his wrist before he goes, pulling him for a tighter hug, wrapping her arms around him. As they pull apart, she kisses him on the forehead, her hand cupping his cheek. "I love you, kiddo, you know that?"

"Yeah...?" David replies, looking embarrassed, and wanders into the den. A minute later they hear the tinkling of piano keys start up.

Juliet, though, is staring at her sister, her heartbeat revving up. "Is everything - are you - are you OK?"

Rachel's whole face flushes bright. "I'm OK. I'm better than OK." Her face splits into a massive smile. "The bone marrow transplant - it worked."

That was five years ago. "Well, of course it worked."

"No, I mean, it really worked. I'm pregnant. I'm pre... I'm pregnant."

Juliet's heart turns over in her chest. "What?" she whispers, like that's all too much to hope.

Rachel reaches into her purse, pulling out an ultrasound.

"Oh my god," Juliet whispers.

"Look," Rachel breathes, holding it out. "Look. I didn't want to tell you until I heard the heartbeat and everything."

Juliet approaches on wobbly legs. "It worked. Oh my god," and she's looking at her little niece or nephew, a tiny little peanut of a creature, a black-and-white swirl, and now she knows how to look at these, not at all like when she had one for David, and now she's laughing and crying at the same time, and so is Rachel.

"Eight weeks?" she estimates.

"Yeah," Rachel beams again, and she's really healthy, she's going to have a _baby_, for god's sake, even if in seven or eight years the kid _is_ going to resent Rachel because it's not allowed to have a Nintendo. "I got my period back about a year ago, but I didn't want to say anything. You and all those stupid sunshiney rays of hope you would have had," Rachel laughs. "But - it worked. Ever since David was born, all I ever wanted was to get healthy enough to have a baby. And then, when I rem... because of you - because of _both_ of you, I can. I - oh, god, I just, it's not - I mean, it's not going to be - but - it's different, but - "

"Now you're losing me," Juliet laughs through her tears. She's going to be an aunt! An_ aunt!_ She never thought she would be, and now she's so excited. Aunts get to do all the fun stuff. They don't have to deal with stomping whiny seven-year-olds; they get to take them to the pier and buy them corndogs and ice cream.

"I - it doesn't - I don't know. It's not the right year, I mean, and unless it - I don't know. Never mind. It's going to be OK, right?"

Not the right _year?_ Her sister's only 31. That's a perfectly healthy age to have a baby. "Of course it is." Her face hurts from smiling, now. She's wanted to talk to Rachel about the fight with Jack, but this isn't the time, and - "Is this why you've been avoiding me?"

"Kinda," Rachel blushes. "Morning sickness, and I knew I was never going to be able to keep it from you... At least I'm not as bad as _you_ were. More than three months, and I had no idea. And we lived in the same house!"

"Well, you were dealing with a lot of stuff back then yourself. You're taking prenatals, right? You have a good doctor? Niall must be thrilled."

"Yeah... and yeah, he is. He's, like, insane with joy. It's ridiculous."

Juliet looks at the ultrasound again, her niece's teeny arms and legs. Or nephew's. Her face splits into another grin. What an insanely up-and-down kind of day. "Now we just have to get this little bugger into an Ivy League school," she giggles. "Or at least NAU."

That's when Rachel's face crumbles, just for a second, before she puts up some kind of wall, another smile overtaking her face. But somehow, this one isn't as bright. "Or maybe - maybe somewhere else," she gets out.

"OK," Juliet agrees readily. Ugh, pregnancy hormones. Poor Rachel. Talk about having an up-and-down day. That's certainly something Juliet doesn't miss. "Then anywhere she wants."

_"She?"_ Rachel repeats.

"Or he. Just a guess."

"She," Rachel says again, almost to herself this time. "I don't know."

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see."

"Yeah. I guess... I guess we will."

* * *

**Please leave a review! You'll find out who's on that other bar stool, and a flashback to what the fight with Jack was all about, in the following chapter. Oh, the suspense.**


	69. Arthritis Sucked More

**Note: '90s Land is a direct and outright theft of Makealist's '70s Land from "Ghosts of L.A." It was exactly what I was trying to say, so... consider it an homage and not plagiarism? **

**ALSO: Holy format switch, Batman!**

* * *

_I can't help the feeling_  
_I could blow through the ceiling_  
_If I just turn and run._

Radiohead, "Fake Plastic Trees"

* * *

**_Rachel_**  
**_February 1994_**

Rachel doesn't relax until the bus wheezes onto I-40. She's got a double seat to herself, and everyone around her has pulled out newspapers, books, Walkmen or Discmen, and finally she slides out her own Discman - a _Discman!_ Niall was so fucking excited when he'd gotten it for her.

And all of these people think of _course _music is tangible. She plugs in her headphones.

The music does nothing to calm her nerves, not that she expected it to, and it's been five months but everything still feels like it's some bizarre theme park, '90s Land. Every other person on this goddamn bus is wearing a plaid flannel shirt. A stereotype of the '90s she would have tried to use with... (with, with, with her son).

And anyway: Everyone had.. no... _has,_ to haul around these huge black plastic Discmen, can't even fit them in your pocket, and then there's the eardrum-shattering modem to check your e-mail but it doesn't even _matter_ because there's no fucking World Wide Web yet, at least not in practice, and it's impossible to find anyone_ (and my sister's alive again and I'm young again and Julian doesn't exist and maybe he never will) _- but when she gets stuck on these loops it's like she can't breathe and anyway -

Rachel moves her eyes up, watching the brush and red rocks rushing by, an endless stream of almost overwhelming color and texture. Nowadays all she can think of is bringing Julian on his college visit to NAU (she really needs to move out of Arizona), moving him into college, visits on Parents' Weekend - she moves her eyes back down into the Discman on her lap, hits the release button so abruptly that the CD inside is still spinning when the lid pops up.

Kate Bush.

It's fucking 1994 and this sounds ridiculously '80s.

Kate Bush is supposed to be dead.

(Juliet is supposed to be dead.)

(Rachel could have died. But David exists.)

Niall probably won't even find her note until after 5 tonight. Rachel will be halfway to L.A. by then.

She squeezes a hand over her eyes. She is NOT crazy.

* * *

Three hours and the bus pulls into a rest stop on the outskirts of Kingman. Rachel hauls her stuff into the closet-sized bathroom stall, unwilling to leave it amongst her fellow bus peasants.

She should probably be wearing a surgical mask, still. On the bus. In a crowd at the rest stop like this. Except she doesn't want to be memorable. Doesn't need Niall calling every rest stop within a 200-mile radius of Flagstaff. Mountainaire. Fucking hamlet. Whatever.

In the tired-looking too-maroon atrium she buys a Coke (no one even drinks bottled water yet, or not much anyway) and skims the headlines of the newspapers.

_Clinton Faces Hurdles on NAFTA._ (And not only are the Clintons still alive, they're still _together, _she has to remind herself. Hell, the _Gores_ are still together.)

_Kevorkian Assists in 13th Suicide. _(Yep yep, Kevorkian's still alive.)

_Exxon Valdez Settlement Hasn't Settled Very Much. _(That was only, like, five years ago. And the BP1 and 2 spills are still a long-ass ways away.)

_The Place to Play: Discovery Zone Is a Dimension for Children._

Is that what this all is? Another dimension? (Julian loved Discovery Zone.) Rachel stuffs her soda bottle into her stupid faux-hippie patchwork bag, her hands fumbling for the skin on her face. Some days now she can't stop touching her face, the smooth, plump skin, she's so young, how could she remember the way her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren felt in her arms, she's -

No. She's real. This is real.

But all of _that?_ That was real, too.

Maybe.

If she could just have someone to _talk_ to -

This irony isn't lost on her, she's always been the popular one, the one with the phone constantly ringing. Growing up, Juliet was the nerdy one, the outcast. Rachel didn't stand up for her nearly enough this time around; no, _this_ time around she was a horrible big sister, and for a second, guilt washes over her until she pushes it away.

No, instead she's had friends for every goddamn occasion, every activity, kayaking with four or five people in the canyon almost every Sunday, a packed yard every Memorial Day, Fourth of July, house bursting at the seams on New Year's, but here she is all alone in a bus terminal in the middle of the fucking desert.

Rachel presses her knuckles to her mouth, and they're calling for her bus now. There's a moment where she thinks she could just take another one going in the opposite direction and maybe, possibly, she could be home again before Niall, maybe no one would know. She'd wanted to leave last week, she'd felt well enough but she didn't want to ruin Valentine's Day, couldn't do it_,_ it's Juliet's first year married and anyway, Niall was cooking up plans.

She's glad she doesn't have a cell phone; it could tempt her to call him.

(And what does it mean that she didn't know Niall in that other time?)

_Just because two people love each other doesn't mean they're supposed to be together._

And then: _Don't,_ she tells herself._ DON'T__._

* * *

The bus is hot from idling in the sun. She should have looked harder for water. Pulls out her Discman again, snaps in a Cranberries CD (every one of them she could almost laugh over, and Juliet's still using _tapes_, for god's sake. But then again, even in that other life, she never saw an iPod.)

_(Stop it.)_

When Rachel can breathe again, she slips her notebook out of her bag and tries to write. Her handwriting comes out shaky. It's just... she'd thought about looking up Lawrence, but who wants to look up an almost-forgotten ex-husband? Or any in the series of boyfriends that came before or after him? No, she'd decided against it.

(Why _is _it that no one else remembers?) (She isn't actually crazy, is she? Juliet and Niall thought it was all in her head, a side effect of the transplant.) (No.) (NO.)

Edmund Burke, assuming he exists, isn't in Miami. At least not that she could find. Maybe he's not a doctor this time around? Juliet is going to be a plain ol' OB-GYN, maybe, this time. She's not doing the MD-PhD thing because it would take too long and she needs to help support David, and that means -

Rachel flips back a few pages.

_James W. Ford, 1223 Coates Ave., Apt. A, Los Angeles._

It may not be him. She'd called all the James Fords listed in the Alabama phone book from the library (Google isn't a verb in the OED yet; hell, Google doesn't even _exist _yet. Does it? She needs to get on that, needs to find a stockbroker).

Anyway: None of those six James Fords had sounded right to her on the phone. She'd looked up Albuquerque, wasn't that where his daughter had been from?, but there were none, and anyway, when he and that buddy of his, was it Mlo? Miles? She can't remember his name, but they'd ended up living in L.A., near the criminal chick and the blonde girl (were they a couple? Rachel can't remember) and they'd raised the little boy. Big boy. Teenager. College student. Journalist. Father.

Anyway.

She's been calling and calling. No answering machine, and then once a girl answered, high-pitched and giggly, and Rachel's stomach had twisted and she'd slammed down the phone.

In other words: This could be completely pointless. Or awful.

Except. If he exists. Then at least Rachel knows she isn't crazy. And if he remembers? She doesn't know.

There's a reason she hadn't tried harder to convince Juliet, after all. If she'd remembered too? Then what? Then she leaves her marriage? Then she _stays?_ Neither sounds good. And either way, she'd realize what had happened to her. Better to keep things the way they are. Right?

But James? James was Rachel's friend. James was maybe just as much hers as he was Juliet's. Her friend for almost forty years, and yes, fuck it, she _could so _have had a friend for that long even though she's only 26 right now.

In that other time, other dimension, what-the-fuck-ever, after she'd recovered from her whole screaming fit over what he'd had to tell her, and she'd found a slip of paper with his phone number in her mailbox the next morning... well, she was out in L.A. at least twice a year, and he'd come to Miami, and then New Orleans after she'd moved. (And oh god, that's another thing, Katrina, is that still happening?)

He'd helped her move, even.

Julian was off on his own already, just her and James driving her Toyota Orbit (they don't even _make _those yet!) across Florida and along the Gulf Goast, the sunroof down. Thirteen hours, two days. Rachel remembers hanging her bare feet out the window as James drove on the second morning, their bellies full of diner pancakes. Some overly mournful indie band whining out of the speakers.

She'd flipped through the options on the sat radio, finding a 65-year-old Rolling Stones song instead, and James had nodded his approval wordlessly.

So Rachel went back to studying her feet on the window ledge, her bright red pedicure flashing in the sun, the weird way her skin was starting to hang a little more loosely these days.

"We're getting old," she said. Without thinking about it first. _"Beats the alternative" _hanging in the air between them.

She cut her eyes over to him, too fast but without moving her head, anxiously, watching him from around the side of her sunglasses. There was a lot more gray in his hair than she remembered from last year in L.A.

He'd just adjusted his hands on the steering wheel, his forehead furrowing the way it usually did just before he delivered some wise-ass remark. Instead, he swallowed two or three times.

(They almost never talked about her.)

Finally, he nodded. Just once, briskly. "Well. Least I got you, Grandma Moses."

Wasn't much to laugh about, but they'd kind of laughed anyway. What else could they do?

* * *

In Los Angeles she checks into a Super 8, hefts her stuff into the room, walks out into the glittering late-afternoon sunlight for an In-N-Out burger. She blinks inside; none of the people in there know that In-N-Out gets bought out by Wendy's.

That the Super 8 motel chain goes bankrupt.

She places her order. Waits by the drink machine.

No one in here knows that 9/11 happens. That New Orleans is swallowed up for at least a month. That the Second Great Depression leads tens of thousands of Americans to immigrate to Canada and Mexico.

"I Will Always Love You" was a hit song just last year, and no one knows that Whitney Houston dies in a California hotel room. That Lance Armstrong dies in a terrible bike crash on live television (have they even _heard_ of Lance Armstrong yet?). That gas goes down to 50 cents a gallon once most cars go electric.

That that nerdy little spindly-legged Chelsea Clinton surprises everyone by brokering a lasting truce in the Middle East.

And not ONE of these assholes inside this fucking In-N-Out Burger knows that Rachel's _sister_ (her healthy, _alive_ sister, a fucking _mother_ now) supposedly went to college in Miami, _not_ LA; that she went to med school at Tulane, _not_ in Michigan, that she married - and divorced - a total a-hole, that she _never_ had a child, that she disappeared and fell in love and then fell to her death and NONE OF IT WAS FUCKING FAIR. And Rachel had Julian and, and Rachel got OLD and Rachel secretly had a favorite grandchild (Stepha) and menopause _sucked_ and arthritis sucked more but at least she held her great-grandbabies in her arms and nothing, _none__ of that happened now, _or will happen - and OK, hopefully nobody knew that Stepha was her favorite in her previous life, _either_ - but the whole point of this is that NOBODY KNOWS.

Fucking In-N-Out burger.

James would know what to say about all this.

Rachel? Doesn't.

* * *

She stakes out his place for most of the next day, a painted one-story cinderblock bungalow that's been divided in two apartments. It's awful and run-down and depressing except for a terra cotta pot of yellow daisies on the steps outside. Two mailboxes.

_Apt. A: Ford. Apt. B: Phillips. _

There's an aging Honda in the driveway, and she knocks on the door of Apartment A and no one answers and it's stupid that she's even here but she goes back to her rental car and waits and tries to read and waits some more and then tries to write. (Her fingernails are bitten down to the quick.)

(She's not crazy, she's just _alone_, and she should call Niall but - )

Seriously, it's good that cell phones are still the size of suitcases and she doesn't...

What if this James Ford _is_ the James Ford she's looking for? And Juliet lived in L.A. for four years but they never...?

Except there's Jack. And Jack's a good guy. He tries. He really does. Juliet deserves to be happy. And Rachel has her sister and she doesn't have her son and she misses her friend.

Almost forty fucking years. She'd cried when he'd died, cried just as hard as when she'd heard about her sister. Maybe more because it was losing Juliet all over again.

Now her sister's only a phone call away.

What is that even supposed to mean? What is ANY of this -

At dusk her heart is too full or too empty, she can't really tell which, and she goes back to her motel room with a six-pack, drinks five of them.

* * *

Does she look like a stalker? A spy? A jilted ex-girlfriend just waiting to pounce?

It's too hot to sit in the car today, and anyway, a second day of her car parked just outside? Looks kind of suspicious. What if he calls the cops or something?

So she parks around the corner, sets herself up on a bench. Knocking is too obvious anyway. A girl (woman?) around Rachel's age comes out of Apartment B and climbs into the crappy Honda in the driveway. Checks her lipstick in the rearview. Gives Rachel an appraising look.

She should really have found a bus schedule to hold or something. This is absurd. Ridiculous. So she wants to prove she's not crazy. So, what? SO if she's not crazy, that really means her son doesn't exist. Won't exist? She hasn't had her period since, since when? Since before her nephew was born.

Rachel is never going to have a child. Not in _this_ life. And all the long, hot bus trips across the desert won't solve that. Once upon a time, Rachel would have given anything, _anything_ (or so she thought) to have her sister back.

Yeah, well. Maybe she did.

The walk back to her car seems twice as long, her feet are too heavy or she doesn't even know. And then: A breeze as someone brushes past her, head down, walking fast, and Rachel's breath freezes in her throat.

"Hey!" she bellows, and then again for good measure when he just keeps walking. "Hey!" and he stops in his tracks, spins around and her breath is still frozen.

He's, just, he's so young, his face smooth and his hair shaggy and dark blond, his hairline too low somehow. He looks a little dumbfounded at first, like he wants to speak but forgot what he was about to say, and his eyes move down her body to her feet and then back up again to her face.

His eyes pause there, and she remembers the first time they'd met, him standing on her front steps on a too-sunny blue-sky day just like this one when nature wasn't even respectful enough to send rain. She hadn't even known who he was back then, just that for some reason this good-looking stranger was trying to mentally catalog every single feature on her face.

James' mouth closes, then opens again slightly. He makes a quiet, indistinct sound in the back of his throat.

He is her friend. He is a stranger.

He doesn't know. He is here. She isn't crazy.

They're standing near a bus stop.

"Is that - " she clears her throat, her sinuses flooded when she wasn't paying attention - "Does this bus go downtown?"

"I - you want..." His forehead furrows. The way it usually did (does?) just before he delivered some wise-ass remark. He nods briskly. "Nah, you want the 42B, that's the one 'cross the street." He points.

She nods.

"Thanks."

There's nothing left to do now except cross the street, so she does.

He walks another 10 feet to the bus stop on his side.

They take turns watching each other and their respective sidewalks. Rachel's throat aches.

Eventually a hulking city bus wheezes down his side of the street. Her last view of him is his forehead furrowing again, and then the bus is blocking her view.

The bus leaves. He's gone. She's here.

Time to go home.


	70. Advice

**Thank you so much to everyone who left all those reviews on the previous two chapters! I was thrilled to see how many of you are still reading and invested in this story!**

**Now if you all could do that again, I would LOVE it. Obviously.**

* * *

_Imagine what loneliness will drive someone to do._  
_ Now multiply that times me, _  
_and multiply that times you._  
_ Now imagine what it would take_  
_to make this all happen again._

Ani DiFranco, "Carry You Around"

* * *

Most residents would probably balk at the pile of scutwork waiting for them on a Friday night, but Juliet's in far too good of a mood to care, or so she tells herself. She's got a relatively comfy chair, Jeff Buckley on UCLA Radio (and then there's_ Rachel's pregnant, Rachel's pregnant, Rachel's pregnant_, repeating in the back of her head, a soundtrack she's happy to have stuck in a mental loop).

The pile of autoclave bags in front of her means she doesn't have to think too hard about any particular thing. Kind of reminds her of her grocery store days, or reshelving books by the cartload in the undergrad library, or fixing... wait, nope.

But anyway, there's no helping women get through labor or assisting in the C-sections that are making her increasingly less nervous these days. Mostly it's amazing, but there are times when it's so incredibly draining, taunting that part of her that long ago believed she would have done much better hidden away in a lab.

Introverts probably aren't supposed to spend 18 hours a day surrounded by women in their time of greatest need.

Here, though, now, she's alone, and it feels good. Soothing. She's hardly ever alone anymore, and it's nice right now, even while she's wondering just a tiny bit what's happening in the ballroom at the Port of Miami Holiday Inn at her high school reunion. Wondering how many of her classmates actually made something of themselves, if they decided to just remain assholes, or some combination thereof. She remembers that afternoon Stephen Brisson came over, in theory to watch a rental copy of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," but primarily to relieve her of her virginity, and this probably isn't the right direction in which have her mind going, but -

The door clicks open, and Juliet sighs inwardly before looking up, expecting to be pulled into patient care when she's really just fine with hiding out here until the end of her shift. But it's just a blonde doctor in a long white coat, one she doesn't recognize, must be new, heading toward the fridge cases along the far wall.

Juliet's in scrubs and for all this doctor knows, she could be a lowly med student still. They exchange a quick smile and there's something about her that looks vaguely familiar, but Juliet bends down to her work again.

Jeff Buckley fades away and then it's something else, a Pixies song but she's not sure which one, Jack would know.

Jack. Right. She tries to redirect her thoughts.

_Rachel's pregnant, Rachel's pregnant, Rachel's pregnant,_ repeats her brain.

The doctor sorts through some medication bottles in the case, slipping a few of them into the pocket of her coat, making marks on a clipboard. Juliet glances again at the back of her head. There really is something kind of familiar about her.

She wonders what Jack will say about Rachel's pregnancy. Thinks about how when David has a bad dream, he still comes in to snuggle. (How could she not want more moments like that?)

"You look so familiar."

Juliet looks up again, and the blonde doctor is watching her, her forehead furrowed. She looks... a little suspicious.

But the realization comes, and of _course_ Juliet should remember who's standing in front of her. Dr. Michelle Burke's probably seen thousands of patients in her career; Juliet's only ever had one baby.

"Oh my god," she laughs. "You delivered my baby!"

Dr. Burke laughs too. "Wait! Yes! Yes, I remember you. I thought you were... never mind." She shakes her head, smiling. "Wait, don't tell me - you were in college, right? And we crocheted -"

"On New Year's Eve." Juliet feels the smile splitting her face. "Thank you for finishing the blanket. I don't know if I ever managed to send a thank you."

Dr. Burke approaches, still smiling and shaking her head. "I don't remember either way. Tell me your name. You had a baby boy, I remember."

"Juliet Carlson. My son is David. He's seven."

"Where does the time go?" She nods toward Juliet's scrubs. "Med student?"

"Finishing up the second year of my residency." Juliet tilts her head toward the badge at her hip. "Scutwork notwithstanding."

Dr. Burke makes kind of a _hmph_ing sound. "They have you doing this on a Friday night?"

_...Says the doctor who spent a New Year's Eve crocheting with a knocked-up college student._ "Who knows? I must have made someone angry in a past life."

When Dr. Burke's pager goes off, Juliet sneaks a peek at her left hand. No wedding ring.

_Must be nice,_ the suddenly not-so-nice voice in her head snits, while Dr. Burke scrolls through the message. Then she almost recoils, because: Things aren't that bad. They're really not. They're _good_. Right? One bad fight doesn't have to mean anything. If she'd bothered to attend her high school reunion, she could have walked in there with her head held high.

Pager in hand, Dr. Burke hurries out of the room.

So Juliet goes back to her boring, mindless, easy work. She drifts off thinking about David's baby days for awhile, the good parts of them. There's a commercial on the radio, telling listeners the another version of the same exact story: how everyone can have a better life, if they just do what the commercial tells them.

* * *

The fight with Jack had started, of course, on a night when they were both tired and cranky to begin with. He'd come off a 24-hour shift barely six hours before; she'd worked an overnight the night before; they'd both gotten David back from Margo in mid-afternoon at his whiniest, most overtired homework-is-the-source-of-all-evil state. And irritated because they were just leaving him with a sitter anyway.

Nonetheless, they'd had these plans for weeks, so they'd hauled off to dinner with Raj, a work friend of Jack's, plus Nina, the wife. Who's in public relations right now, "but once the baby comes" - and here they'd beamed at each other.

After all the necessary congratulations and the "So that's why you passed up the wine," it came down to food cravings, and Raj telling an overly involved story about Nina's desperate need for bacon.

"Juliet wanted pancakes," Jack volunteered. "It must be a breakfast thing."

But Juliet had felt a mild surge of irritation. _You weren't even there_, she wanted to say. Then again, whose fault was that? "Just in the beginning," she found herself saying, to Nina rather than Jack. "Then it was anything with mustard. Anything. You wait, your cravings will change."

She noticed Jack watching her, not saying anything more, and then Nina started up with questions about whether it's true your child will prefer those same foods someday, and then she asked about the strangest things Juliet's patients have craved, and the three doctors at the table all started talking about pica.

Safely, placidly, the moment expired.

But on the way home, they were quiet on the 405, the windows open despite the summer heat, Juliet half-lulled by the whoosh of the wind rushing through the car. "You know you only have one more year on your residency now," Jack had said.

"Thank god."

"No, I meant... we could have another baby after that."

She thought he was kidding. That's the kicker: It was idiotic, but she actually thought he was kidding. It's not like they hadn't talked about having more kids - more in the realm of "someday," though: _Someday we'll go to Hawaii. Someday we'll get a dog. Someday someone will cure cancer. Someday we'll get enough sleep._

So she laughed.

Jack didn't. "What's so funny about that?"

"You're... What?"

"Why not? David's getting older. What are we going to do, wait until he's a teenager?"

"Well, he could drive the baby to daycare for us. That would be kinda nice."

"Juliet."

"I'm... I have to get a job."

"Well, you'll get a job."

"And then... I'm supposed to leave almost immediately to go on maternity leave?"

"I'm not saying immediately, but - "

"Don't you think that would be a little unfair to my employers?"

"Well, but these things happen."

"How would I get any traction there if I left right away?" Does he even respect the fact that she's going to have to earn her way in, just like he's had to? She sat up straighter. "Or am I supposed to get pregnant while I'm still doing my residency and try to go on interviews with a beach ball under my suit? Oh. Yeah. That'll work."

"If this is such an imposition, just go ahead and say so." Defensive. He's getting just as defensive as she is, like a cold they've passed between each other, its point of origin unknown. "I thought you _wanted_ to have more kids. We _talked_ about this, and you_ said - "_

"Yeah, I did."

"So... You changed your mind and decided not to tell me? Is this not next year or not _ever?_"

"...I don't know."

"You don't know," he snapped back at her.

"I'm sorry if that sounded harsh, but - really, do you have any idea what that would be like?"

In the relative dark of passing streetlights, she saw his jaw clench. "Not really. Since you didn't see fit to have me _be_ there for most of it."

She decided to let that one go, her fingers tracing the puckered leather of the door handle. The wind in the car transitioned from lulling to oppressive without her noticing, or maybe that was her burning face.

"Didn't we say, that someday - " Jack begins again.

"Yeah. We said, someday." She remembers packing up her old maternity clothes back when they were moving to Michigan, a tiny whisper of _"well, maaaybe"_ in the back of her head. She remembers their promise to each other back during that pregnancy scare they'd had, midway through their time in Ann Arbor. And she remembers finding those maternity clothes again while packing up to go back to L.A. How laughably outdated they'd looked by then. "Don't you think we were a little... naive back then?"

"Naive," he repeats skeptically.

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, this all is really, really hard."

"It's not _that_ hard, Juliet."

It's _not? _To recount: Having a baby in college, that was hard. Coping with a toddler during med school, that was even harder. Especially with Jack barely around. Beginning her residency with Jack on the other side of the country, while she tried to get over that whole Detroit thing? Really, _really_ hard.

But she'd _expected_ all those things to be hard. Now she'd like to think she's got a handle on the sleep deprivation. She basically knows what she's doing at the hospital. Her son is doing great, she and Jack are (happily?) married, they're renting a great house, her sister is healthy... Juliet has everything. More than she'd ever expected. So why did everything still feel so damn hard sometimes?

"Well, maybe not for you," she finally said.

Jack stopped at a red light, pressing the brake a little too hard, a little too suddenly, and they rocked in their seats. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"When you were doing your residency, I had to do everything else, and I thought that was fair, because then it was going to be my turn. But it's _never_ been my turn. I _still_ have to do everything."

"What do you mean, you have to do everything?"

"Uh, David? Driving him places, helping with homework? Parenting? Laundry? Dishes? Housework? Any of this ringing a bell?"

"This is because I didn't empty the dishwasher this morning? I think you're exaggerating." The light turned green; he stepped on the gas a little too forcefully. The Mercedes took off like a rocket.

"How am I exaggerating? David's growing up, and you're missing it!" OK, maybe that's exaggerating.

"That's - I'm not - I have to work, Juliet."

"That's - you're - you're completely ignoring what I just said. And don't tell me I _don't_ have to work or you can stop this car right now. I am not... some housewife who just - "

"I'm _not_ going to tell you -" He heaved a heavy sigh. "You know that everybody at St. Seb's thinks the only reason I got my job is because of who my father is. Don't you think I need to _prove_ to them I deserve to be there just as much as they do?"

"You didn't have to go to St. Seb's," she said, which is as much true as it is a lie.

"I didn't have to - ? You were going crazy out here, Juliet! What ELSE was I supposed to do?"

It felt like a slap to the face, because - it wasn't like she asked for any of that. She squeezed her eyes shut, almost losing her grip on the here and now, thinking about those tiny yellow rooms. "Well, you know why," she spat.

"NO, I don't. You never talk about it!"

"I'm sure there are things from your past that you'd rather not talk about."

"Well, it seems like you talked to your sister about it plenty. You talked to that _therapist_ more."

"What was I supposed to do, _ignore_ the therapist?"

"I'm your goddamn husband! Look, I came back out to L.A. for YOU. I went to Michigan, for YOU. All I ever do is follow you!"

"Those were YOUR choices!" Over the years, she'd stopped thinking of Jack's single years as serial dating. Or serial fucking, whatever. She's more come to see them as desperate acts, a need to never be alone. And maybe there was a little of that in his decision to follow Juliet around, or maybe that was for their son, in which case it really wasn't fair of her to -

"Don't pass that off on me! I'm your husband, that's what I'm _supposed_ to -"

"Well, if you're _supposed_ to, then what are you so angry about? You want to go somewhere else? I'm sorry! We'll _go!"_ She flung a hand out, gesturing to the scenery gliding by on the other side of the car windows.

"Like you'd leave your residency," he scoffed.

"Well - _after_ my residency. Start looking, if you find something, great - we'll go, or you'll go, and I'll follow once I'm done."

"So then you get to blame me for leaving you alone with David again! Yeah, that's what I want."

"I am NOT blaming you for - "

"That's EXACTLY what you're doing! Don't throw this passive-aggressive bullshit at me, I've done everything I _can_ to -"

"Yeah, did David win or lose his soccer game last week?" she challenged him, turning toward him abruptly. "What's his favorite piece on piano right now? What are we reading at night right now? Do you have any fucking _clue?"_ (Yeah, OK, completely passive-aggressive. She doesn't care right now, her heart racing with anger.)

"This is NOT some kind of fucking competition! You're the one who's trying to turn it into one! You think I'm a bad father? Is _that_ what you're trying to say?"

"I never _said_ that, I just meant - "

"Yes, you did! You don't just get to throw all this random information at me to prove you're a better parent than me!" Jack's voice sounded choked, and Juliet diligently stared at her lap. If he was crying, she didn't want to see it.

"I'm NOT trying to - " she began. (Yes. Yes, she totally was.) "You know what? They_ lost._ Heart and Soul. The Little Prince. OK? _OK?_ Why shouldn't we have a baby? Because I'm going to have to do fucking everything on my own. Again! It's going to be twice as hard, I'm going to have even _less_ time, and NO._ NO_. I don't want to do it!" She was yelling by then, loud, but practically whining, sounding 8 instead of 28,_ nuh uh, I don't wanna._

A long silence. "I taught him that," Jack said, quietly.

"What?"

"Heart and Soul."

What's she supposed to say? She flashed back to her and Jack the piano bench, sitting in the hotel bar the night before they got married. "I'm tired, Jack. I'm stressed out all the time. I thought it would be different. Better. That it would get a lot easier at some point. And, I love you, but... it's still really, really hard."

In profile, Jack's face sort of crumpled. "You love me, _but,"_ he quoted at her.

"But... I'm just... tired."

"If you're _just_ tired, we can get a housekeeper." She could tell he didn't believe her. She wasn't sure whether he should or not. They weren't really talking about the same thing at all, their orbits were missing each other like Neptune and Pluto.

Inside the house she fished her pager and cell phone out of her purse, dropped everything else next to the door without saying anything. Kicked off her heels, padded up to the bedroom without checking on David. Jack could pay the sitter, turn off all the lights. She dropped her electronics on the nightstand and fell facefirst onto the bed.

_But._

* * *

Juliet finishes her night with as little human interaction as possible. It's kinda delightful, UCLA Radio her only companion. She's on her way out to the car, trying to figure out how she can break the news of Rachel's pregnancy to Jack without starting off another fight, when she catches a whiff of cigarette smoke, and it makes her think of...

Well, it makes her think of something she can't remember.

At the entrance of the garage, Dr. Michelle Burke is sitting on the cement steps, lit in a halo of streetlight. The words just fly out of Juliet's mouth as she slows her approach, too fast for her to stop them: "Didn't anyone ever tell you smoking causes cancer?"

The cigarette's glowing tip arcs downward as Dr. Burke lowers her hand. "You know, I think I may have heard something about that."

"I, um..." Juliet gestures toward the stairs. "Sorry."

Dr. Burke flashes a polite smile that Juliet's just barely close enough to see, and then she leans forward, standing to give Juliet enough room to head up the stairs. Juliet pauses, though, digging through her bag, wanting to say something more, figure out where Dr. Burke's been all this time.

But Dr. Burke speaks first. "So you're..." She drops the cigarette to the ground, stubbing it out with the tip of her kitten heel. "You're good? Everything's OK?"

_I'm OK, he's OK, everyone's OK,_ rings out in her head, and a smile springs to her face, unbidden. "Yeah. I'm... It's been good," she says, holding her car keys now. Is she supposed to ask Dr. Burke about her life? The absence of a wedding ring? "Are you... how have you been?"

Dr. Burke barks a laugh, one single note. Kind of angry, kind of defeated. "Let me give you a little piece of advice. Never work with your ex-husband."

For some reason Juliet can't help, she almost wants to laugh. That does sound like pretty much the worst idea ever. "I'll try to keep that in mind. What's - do you want to talk about it?"

Dr. Burke is already shaking her head, tears pricking into her eyes. "This is - really inappropriate. I'm sorry."

"It's OK. Don't worry about it."

She shrugs. "Well, you probably remember what he was like."

Juliet does remember. Gold medal winner in multiple categories, she's pretty sure, including Condescension and Being an Asshole. All those times she'd be in the waiting room at the Burkes' office, overhearing him barking orders to the staff or whining about something to his wife. Or whining to the staff and barking orders at his wife.

"Yeah," she finally says. "I do. Listen - do you want to get a drink or something?"

* * *

At the Black Dog down the street, Dr. Burke (Michelle?) comes out with the whole story, one Juliet admits (to herself only) she'd been dying to know. How Edmund had served her with divorce papers two days after Christmas 1990. How even after the divorce, they'd kept the practice going, switching their admitting rights to Cedars-Sinai five years ago for insurance purposes. This is her first week back at UCLA, and Ed hasn't been to work in two months now, supporting it only financially. "But that's ending this fall. He just told me today. He's moving to Miami with some... research assistant." She wrinkles her nose.

"I'm so sorry," she tells Dr. Burke. "But... better her than you, right?"

Dr. Burke waves a hand. "Oh, that bimbo? She can have him. The real problem is that I have to buy him out, or - well, he could sell it to anyone he wants. Or just liquidate."

"What do you mean, you have to buy him out?"

"All the equipment. Equity." She makes air quotes, rolling her eyes. "'Perceived value'."

"Can he actually do that?"

Dr. Burke heaves a sigh. "Yes, he can. We had the practice appraised, and - " She rolls her eyes again, taking a sip of her drink. "You'd think after all the affairs, everything he pulled over the years, he'd be willing to let me just have this _one_ _thing_, you know?"

"No. He doesn't want you to have_ any_thing." Juliet feels the indignation as if it's her own, this teary anger squeezing her chest. Admittedly, this all is a little weird. Drinking beer with the doctor who'd delivered David. Who's at least 10 or 12 years older than Juliet.

The corners of Dr. Burke's lips turn down, just for a moment. "Let's talk about something else. How's your son?"

"Whiny." Juliet sort of grins, then feels a little bad, as though she's not grateful for him. Which she is, so much. She's rather have a seven-year-old whining at her than a short, skinny, balding asshole doctor husband. "He's great. Starting second grade in the fall. Has a lot of friends. A little girl in his class used to call him up this past year, and he'd get _so_ embarrassed. Um, let's see... He's always loved music, he plays piano. And soccer and softball."

Dr. Burke smiles. "Do you have a picture?"

"Yeah." Juliet sorts through her wallet, handing over a photo from last summer, taken down on Coronado Island. In it, he's holding up a briny red starfish and grinning with pride, one tooth on the bottom missing. His hair is wet and spiky, sticking up. Juliet's right behind him, leaning in, smiling at the camera. At Jack, who'd taken the picture. "It's kind of old."

Dr. Burke makes a clucking sound. "He's adorable."

"Thanks."

"He has your eyes."

She nods, but thinks of David's scowling frustration when she brings him to Margo's, leaves him with a sitter, leaves him with Jack. Is she being a hypocrite when she tells Jack _he's_ not spending enough time with David? "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Did you think...back when I was your patient... did you think I'd be a good mother?"

Dr. Burke smiles at that. "Yes. I did. But I wasn't so sure you'd get through medical school. At least, not right away. I guess I kind of thought you'd put that all aside out of necessity."

Juliet flushes. "Sometimes I wish I had." In her head, she hears Rachel teasing her, doing her best "Princess Bride" lines: _Life is pain, highness. _It's not, though. Not for her, not really. She needs to get over it all. Looking at Dr. Burke's lovely sad face, she can't help thinking she dodged a bullet somehow.

"So how'd you manage it?"

"Hmm?"

"How'd you get through med school?"

An iron will? Learning to like coffee? Her sister threatening to kick her ass if she dropped out? Not to mention the ill-gotten scholarship, money from the Shephards, ...Jack. "A lot of it was Jack."

Dr. Burke leans back a little, maybe in surprise. "That's... David's father?"

Juliet nods.

"Is that..." She points toward Juliet's left hand. "Did you _marry_ him?"

"Five years this August."

"Huh," she remarks, almost to herself.

"Trust me. If you'd told me back when David was born that..." She presses her lips together, trying to figure out how to verbalize confusion. "I guess you could say that, like David, Jack was sort of a happy surprise."

How could she ever call her life an accident?

* * *

Juliet goes to bed alone that night, Jack still at the hospital, but that's another thing: She _knows_ he's at the hospital. He'd never cheat on her, and some of the stories Dr. Burke... _Michelle..._ told her, well, it kind of blew her mind that anyone could put up with that sort of thing, over and over again. Just let themselves be some man's metaphorical punching bag while their husband screwed any woman that would give him the time of day. While she just pretended not to notice.

Juliet can't even imagine it.

In the morning when she opens her eyes, there's Jack, sprawled out across the bed, his arms thrown over his head just like they always are. She studies his face, the dark stubble across his jaw, and she sees a gray whisker, no, _two,_ and her heart flips over for the people they used to be.

She's known him for nine years. All her cells are different now. Sometimes he doesn't understand her and sometimes he understands her too well. And, she supposes, vice versa. She curls onto her side, watching him, and gives herself permission to bump her knee into his. Just in case he's close to being awake, and she tries not to feel too guilty about it. Sometimes early mornings are all they have.

It works, though, and he lets out a long, low breath before cracking his eyes open.

"Hi," she whispers.

"Hey," he whispers back, rolling onto his side as well, facing her, an acre of sheets still between them. She remembers all those awkward nights of sharing a bed at Rachel's, back when every little interaction seemed to be something that had to be interpreted, cataloged, granted a meaning.

Isn't there a point when she stops waiting for... whatever it is she keeps thinking will show up? Doesn't she need to stop waiting for "real life" to happen? This _is_ real life. Juliet sweeps her arm out, catching his hand. "I'm sorry," she says.

He hesitates for just the briefest of moments. "I'm sorry, too."

They smile at each other, hesitantly, like they're strangers on the street, caught together under a bus stop shelter, waiting out a rain storm. She moves closer to him, and maybe in spite of himself, Jack reaches out, cupping his hand over her hip, his thumb moving in a slow circle.

Juliet tells herself that means she can move closer, and she does, leaning her body against his, her forehead against his chest. He wraps her arms around her.

It feels like it's supposed to, the two of them together in the latest of a long series of bedrooms, and she finds herself pressing her hips against his. Jack breathes into her hair and presses back, so she raises her face to his. Their mouths fuse, and she cups the sides of his face as his hands skim down her body.

In the warm sunlight of morning they slowly, quietly strip off their clothes, staying close to each other, touching all the while but not saying a word. When he pushes into her and she gasps loudly, wordlessly, her hand flies up, and he entwines his fingers with hers like they're both making some kind of new promise to each other. She shuts her eyes and presses her face into his neck as he moves faster, harder into her, and she digs her fingers into his side. One of those times when she wishes she never had to open her eyes again, just wants to stay here like this and shut everything out, even though she figured out long ago the outside world will always find a way to jam itself back in.

Afterward, tension still fading, gasping for breath, she can't seem to remember why just getting by isn't good enough. She wants them to be happy. "Let's have a baby," she murmurs.

"What?" Jack's craning his neck to look down at her, and she looks up, dead serious, but nervous, jittery, like the room is shimmering around them.

"Next year, like you said. We'll start trying, once I get a job. There's a lot you missed out on when we had David. A lot we both missed out on, and - it'll be different this time." _We deserve that, don't we?_

He strokes her cheek, a small grin overtaking his face. The kind that wants to be huge, she can tell. He strokes his hand over her flat stomach, her faded stretchmarks. "Really?"

"Really." It's not going to get any easier. But his smile is contagious.


	71. Songs Without Words

**I can't tell you how happy I am to have received so many reviews on the last few chapters! It's making me SO happy! Thank you!  
**

**Title of this chapter comes from Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, Op. 19 No. 1.  
**

* * *

_You think you're not worthy;_  
_ I'd have to say I agree._  
_ I'm not worthy of you;_  
_ You're not worthy of me._  
_ Which of us is deserving?_  
_ Look at the human race,_  
_ the whole planet at arm's length_  
_ and we don't deserve this place._

- Ani DiFranco, "Worthy"

* * *

**December 1998**

"What if they hate me?"

Juliet's halfway under the car, stretching as far as she can, and she can barely hear him. "What? Who?"

"What if they don't clap?"

She squints in the relative darkness of the garage, breathing in the fumes of gasoline and oil and who knows what else. Should be great for that whole Getting Pregnant Next Year plan. _Listen up, eggies, hold your breath._ "You'll be fine," she says, even though her voice is probably muffled under here.

Finally, finally, she spots David's softball lodged up against the right rear tire, and she carefully dislodges herself. "Ball's behind the tire over there," she tells David, pointing, and he squats down to get it himself.

Even after he's retrieved it, though, he stays down, rolling the ball between his dark blue sneakers, catching it first with one fingertip and then the other. "But what if, what if because of Hawaii and I didn't get my lesson..."

They'd taken the 'Oh, screw it' route and gone to Hawaii for Thanksgiving two weeks ago. (Funny how she and Jack always seem to get along better when they're at the beach.) David had surprised them, though, fretting and asking _how_ he was supposed to be practicing his piece for the Christmas recital when the white baby grand at the Royal Hawaiian was behind a velvet rope. Finally Jack had talked to the concierge, and after that either Juliet or Jack spent the first hour of their day sitting by the fountains reading and waiting for David to finish going through his routine.

Once they'd moved on to Kaua'i, though, there was no piano at all. They'd distracted him enough, with drives around the island to different beaches, letting him choose where they'd swim each day. They'd bought a hammock in one of those joyously tacky ABC Stores that were all over the place, and Jack would chivalrously set it up at each stop even though Juliet was hardly incapable of, you know, tying a knot. But then Juliet would actually get to curl up and read sometimes while Jack swam with David, or at least until David wanted to swing in the hammock, and it seemed like all was forgotten.

Now, though, she looks at David's crimped-up forehead and wonders if they should just pull him out of his lessons all together. He's getting too stressed out, about it, isn't he? He's not even eight years old, for god's sake! She wonders if Jack was a Type A already at that age. Figures he probably was. David's so much gentler though; she'd thought he'd be more like her: a silent worrier.

Instead, they got a Type A worrier.

"You know it's important to still have fun with the piano, right?" she finally says. "You've been practicing really hard, and that's what people want to see, but it's important that it's still fun. And no one is expecting you to be perfect. You know that, right? We're proud of you no matter what. Even if you mess up and just play Jingle Bells with one finger like Schroeder."

David shrugs, finally standing up. He pauses again to locate his baseball glove. "I just don't want people to be..." There's a struggle on his face as he tries to come up with the right word. "... disappointed."

She waits until she knows he's really, really paying attention. "David," she says. "You're gonna do great. I _know_ you are."

* * *

They stand for the Hallelujah chorus and her eyes meet Jack's over David's head. Their son's face is shining with joy and they share a secret smile because: Because Jack was supposed to see Handel's Messiah without them, once upon a time, back when David was a baby and Juliet was barely speaking to Jack and there was nothing but tension between them until he showed up five minutes before she was leaving for Arizona, and and and.

And here they are, on the other side of the tunnel.

At the end, David claps and claps. They bring him to the country club afterward for dessert with Margo and Christian and Ray (hell, Juliet and Jack aren't members, they kind of _need_ Margo and Christian for these fancypants moments), and in front of the fireplace David tells them all about it while he lets his half-forgotten ice cream sundae melt into a puddle.

* * *

"You look like you're somewhere else."

Caught. Juliet looks up from the pile of paperwork spread out over the conference table at Michelle's office. "Maybe a little."

"You want to talk about it?" Michelle asks.

Her eyes flicker down to the papers again. "I don't think I can do this. I mean - even if we did manage to find the money, I..." She starts sweeping the papers back toward their folder.

"You...?"

"I feel like I barely know what I'm doing," she finally says. "You need someone with experience, I - you probably don't remember this, but back when I came to you and you did my ultrasound with David, you told me he was perfectly perfect in every way. And I'd sort of adopted that saying with my patients."

Michelle smiles, her eyes crinkling up. "I can't say you were the first patient I used that with, but I'm glad it made an impression."

What's she supposed to say? Juliet finishes with the papers, twists her hands in her lap. She's had a lot of firsts, learning how to be a doctor: First time doing blood draws, first time doing stitches, first time doing an ultrasound, first time delivering a baby on her own, first time assisting in a C-section, first first first, etc., etc., etc. "I did an ultrasound today, on a patient. And it was the first time I had to tell someone... that her baby wasn't perfectly perfect. It wasn't even alive."

Great, and now she's trying not to cry. Crying hadn't even occurred to her at the time, fortunately, but now, remembering the look on that woman's face: disbelief for the longest time, then a sort of pleading horror.

Like Juliet could have just waved some magic wand and made it all better if she'd really, really wanted to.

"What happened?"

"Fetus had just... died, looked like about two weeks ago, and she was - " here Juliet's lungs tighten - "already in the second trimester. And I just - there was nothing I could do to make her feel better. Her husband wasn't even _there_, it was just supposed to be routine and I - it's so close to Christmas, she'll always remember this and - there was nothing I could do."

"Of course there wasn't," Michelle says simply.

"So..."

"Have you been assisting another doctor when something like this happened?"

"Yeah, of course."

"And was what those other doctors said or did radically different than what you did today?"

"No...?"

"And could you have done something, two or three weeks ago, to get the fetus to keep growing, if you hadn't noticed any irregularities previously?"

"No...?"

"Juliet, that doesn't mean you're a bad doctor. It doesn't even mean you're inexperienced, although yes, of course you'll get better at it. But if you can give people bad news with compassion..."

"I'm not used to death. Maybe, maybe I'm not good with people. Maybe I should have just gone into research, or... what if I can't do this?" She remembers what Jack had told her recently, bitching about Christian's criticism of his bedside matter. _I just don't want to give them false hope_, he'd told her. _Why does he think it's OK to lie?_

"Believe it or not, it does get easier." Michelle offers a close-lipped, sad smile, reaching over and closing the top of the manila folder. "At least you're bound to be nicer to patients than my ex-husband was. We don't have to do anything right now. Think about it. Talk to Jack."

* * *

In the car she just keeps turning it over and over in her head. How Rachel's doctors had had to give her bad news, over and over, once upon a time. That must be what this is about, right? Juliet's never lost a patient, as in an actual adult living patient, and even though she can't seem to get this vision out of her head, someone hemorrhaging over sickening green hospital sheets, a man screaming until he needed to be dragged out of the room, another man's bright green eyes watching her over the rim of his surgical mask -

No, no no no. This was one woman's miscarriage, playing off of one of her many, _many_ old old old insecurities, and that's that.

She takes the winding ramp off the 405, finally flipping on the radio even though this time of her choices are basically limited to "White Christmas" and "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and "Please Come Home for Christmas," and anything else with Christmas in the title. Jack keeps bugging her to at least get a CD player installed in her old Volvo if she's not going get a new car any time soon.

"Those car stereo guys are such a rip-off," she told him the other night.

"Three hundred bucks so you can stop with the tapes already? Seems worth it to me."

_Not when I kinda sorta want to sink $125,000 into a business and we barely have half of it, and half of that is supposed to be for a house,_ she certainly didn't say. "That kind of job should take all of 20 minutes. It's a rip-off."

Jack had looked at her kind of funny. "How would you even know?"

"I'm just saying - you know what? Never mind. Maybe after the holidays."

She stops at a red light, her car radio just rockin' around that metaphorical Christmas tree. The car in front of her is packed with teenagers obviously grooving to something a hell of a lot more entertaining. Christmas lights are reflecting red and green and bright white onto the pavement, and then it's not just the lights she's looking at on the pavement, it's the lights in her rearview mirror, headlights, coming up too fast and uneven, wait a second, _way_ too fast, WHAT THE -

_Slam. SLAM. Clunk._

* * *

Awhile later, there are lights again, swimming overhead like drunk dolphins. "Wh-where are we?" a voice asks, that may or may not be hers. Probably it isn't, actually. Something wet and sticky is running down her forehead. A cracked egg.

"Don't you worry 'bout that," a voice comes from beside her. Oh, the lights overhead are repeating, over and over. That's what "repeating" means, though: over and over._ 'Cause we're doing it over again._ They're moving down a hallway, maybe, or back and forth? It's a cop next to her, maybe. Someone in dark blue and there's a radio crackling. _Do you seriously have to leave that thing on when we're trying to...?_

_Go ahead and say it, sweetheart. _

Juliet closes her eyes. There's blood in her mouth. Blood from her nose? No, no, wait! Nosebleeds are _bad_, they... She tries to sit up. Shit, _shit_, she needs to _warn_ them about -

Someone else is saying something about her blood pressure even though she keeps trying to talk and her head fucking hurts. They're pressing on her shoulders because she's sitting up now and she throws a wild look over at the bewildered cop. _You're supposed to be HELPING me!_

His eyes are wide. Why is he so confused? His hair's long for a cop, shouldn't he get a hair cut? "We dunno who Charlotte is, sorry, but you were by yourself in the car. Don't worry. You're gonna be OK. I promise. What's your name? Can ya tell me?"

A sharp... thing(?) jabs into the back of her hand. Right into her hand, and it _hurts;_ actually there are a lot of things that hurt, actually everything fucking hurts. Her body feels like it was dropped down a 40-foot hole,_ head neck ribs back spine hips legs -_

Except it didn't. Whatever she's lying on is moving around. Kind of wobbling. She's lying down again? When did that happen? Is she asleep? In the hammock on Kaua'i? What the _hell?_ "We're still on the island?"

"Likely concussion," someone else is saying. "Dislocated shoulder. Lacerations, forehead probably needs..."

_NO_, she thinks, furiously, because this is NOT about some dislocated shoulder _(wait, why am I here, WHAT AM I DOING HERE, THIS IS ALL WRONG)_ - "No, I hit the bomb, and -" Tears, but her eyes are still closed. _No, NO, I fucked something up -_

"Yeah, Shephard's on the other one," someone's saying to someone else. There are so many someones. Who are all these people? They're all on the beach? Wait! Wait, no, she remembers, this is the part with the flaming arrows, isn't it?

"Can you tell me your name, sweetheart?" another voice asks, or maybe it's just the first one again. Yeah, yeah, the cop, the crackly radio one, he's supposed to know, _just tell them! Tell them what they want to know! Tell them where Kate -  
_

"Stop," she begs, pleading, they're _hurting_ him, and -

She opens her eyes again, halfway only. The dolphin-lights are still swimming. Oh! Oh, no! She forgot about them!_ My sweet babies, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I'll feed you in just a minute. Click click to you, too. Mackerel today._

Wait. They wanted to know her name?

"Juliet Burke," her voice says.

There's a tiny little light now, shining in her eyes. The light is too bright; she tries to squeeze her eyes closed. "And how old are you, Juliet?"

"Thirty... um, thirty-seven."

Kind of a long silence, or maybe because she's trying to sleep and she fell asleep again and why won't these people just let her sleep? The bright lights are pinky white against her closed eyelids and the voice sounds louder now, nervous.

"Juliet, how old are you? Twenty-six? Twenty-seven? Do you have any allergies? Can you open your eyes for us? Can you open your eyes? You're wearing a wedding ring, are you married? What's your husband's name? Come on, talk to us."

_Come on, come on, you son of a bitch,_ and a laugh, somewhere, from her, probably,_ that worthless cheating son of a bitch, we're divorced_, and she should probably change her stupid name back already.

"I have to tell you something," she says, but then there's darkness again, which is unfortunate, because she really needs to go feed the dolphins.

* * *

Now the lights are coming from the sun through windows; she can tell before she opens her eyes. When she does, there's Jack, asleep on a plastic chair. One of her arms, the left one, is wrapped up and strapped to her chest. A sling. She slides her right arm across her body, brushing Jack's fingers with hers, and he jerks awake.

"Juliet," he breathes.

"Who else would I be?" she asks weakly.

He's blinking away tears. "Well, you tell me," he says shakily, trying to laugh. "The doctor said you gave him the wrong last name. Thank god I came through, but - "

Her entire body is one giant ache. "What?" Her voice is hoarse. "Where are we?"

"St. Sebastian's. Oh god, Juliet," and here his voice cracks. "I thought - you looked - you didn't even know what was going on. I thought - " He looks like he's slept for all of five minutes, dark circles under his sunken eyes, his nose somehow too prominent, his face unshaven, and her heart sinks even though... even though what? He's holding her right hand, pressing it into his scratchy face.

"I'm OK," she tells him, which, granted, is something she's not _entirely_ certain of, considering she's in the hospital. But hey, she wiggles her toes just to check. "I can feel my feet, you know."

He chokes out a sobbing laugh, or a laughing sob, or who even knows, but that's the thing, then he's crying, _really _crying, barking out broken sobs.

"Jack - " she tries, awkwardly, to sit up straighter, her sore body protesting, reaching out for him.

Jack's drawing in ragged breaths, hunched over, not looking at her, his hand on her thigh. "I had this dream last night, after they got you settled in, and - oh god, Juliet, you were _- _and - and _I_ did it, I'm so sorry, I'm _sorry_, I'm so so - "

_"Jack._ Look at me."

Slowly, he does.

"It was just a dream." She cups his cheek, his tears against her palm. "You didn't - you didn't do anything. You don't have anything to be sorry for," she tells him. Despite her own pounding heart. Because they're _here_, in this white white white sun-drenched room just off a freeway in Los Angeles. Her head hurts and her shoulder hurts and sometimes they fight a little too much and they either make too much money or not enough and a whole bunch of other things are maybe just the tiniest bit broken, but the hairline fractures curling around the edges of their life are just that.

He presses his face into her waist, wrapping his arms around her hips, gathering her up. "I love you," he whispers into the fabric of her hospital gown.

"I love you too, " she tells him, her hands stroking over his head, his face.

He chokes a laugh. "I can't believe you were in a car accident and_ I'm_ the one sobbing like a baby."

"Really? I can."

He laughs, looks up at her, and she offers him a smirk. "Now can you tell me what the hell happened?"

Jack backs the story up. Apparently he told her all this already last night, but who knows?

Clearly she wasn't herself last night.

Turns out, some middle-aged guy in an SUV had a tire blow right at the intersection. He slammed into her from behind and pushed her into the car in front of her. Juliet's car spun out and she dislocated her shoulder_ (again?_ seriously?), hit her head - she feels the bandage gingerly, a row of stitches running horizontally across her forehead. She was mumbling all sorts of strange things in the ER, gave the wrong name, Jack tells her, but obviously a concussion will do that.

"Do you remember the accident?"

She starts to shake her head, but that hurts. "No but - oh god," she blurts out. "David, I - is David OK? He wasn't with me when...?"

"No no no, you were on your way to pick him up. He wasn't in the car. He's fine. My mom's got him."

"Thank god," she whispers, mentally sending out a much larger, more enthusiastic thanks than she can verbalize right now. As if she has a concussion, or... or something. "Wait, what last name did I give?"

"Burke. Like Michelle. It's funny what can come out of our heads sometimes." He leans over, kisses her very, very gently. "You're gonna be all right, I promise. We'll fix you up good as new."

"How'd you find me?"

"You _are_ in St. Sebastian's."

"Oh yeah."

He hesitates for a second. "Actually, my dad did a surgery on the guy in the SUV."

"Oh. Oh! What - what happened to the other people?"

"Well, there were three kids in the car in front of you. One of them has a broken collarbone, but otherwise they're OK. But the, um. The guy in the SUV. You know how Volvos are built like tanks. He - it sounds like he kind of bounced off you, and then he skidded across the median and rolled over."

"Jesus."

"Yeah."

"Wait, I didn't - " she's struggling to remember what he told her already, her head throbbing. "I didn't cause it, right?"

"No. No, no, his tire blew," Jack tells her patiently. He's upright again, but close to her, leaning in. "Dad says there's a chance the guy may walk again. We'll have to see. It's gonna be a long road for him, I think. He has this teenage daughter who's been a mess - she was just standing in the ER screaming her head off at one point. They practically had to sedate her. They, um... they'd called me in to assist with her dad, and when I was coming through the ER, that's when I - " he draws in a shaky breath. "That's when I saw you."

She tries to make another joke; they seem to be calming him down. "Well, I'm awfully glad you did. What if they'd called in Michelle's ex-husband to come in for me instead?"

Jack grins, although it's just a tiny one. He's heard a handful of Edmund stories himself by now. "Guess you're stuck with me instead."

"I'll deal. Hey... you didn't tell my sister, did you?" The last thing Juliet needs is for Rachel to be freaking out about _her_ while seven months pregnant.

"I _may_ have possibly called her."

"Jack!"

"You were unconscious! What did you expect me to do?"

"Were you... sobbing hysterically at the time?"

"No," he tells her firmly.

"OK. Well, we need to call her, or - when can I get out of here?"

"You're that eager to go out there and try to catch babies one-handed?"

She relaxes at that; he's feeling better now, isn't he? "I do a lot more than just catch babies, thank you. It's..." She tries to remember. "It's Saturday?"

"Yeah?"

"What about David's recital?"

Jack heaves a sigh. "They'll probably let you go in a few hours now. If you are _very_ careful, and get plenty of rest, you should be fine. We will _call_ your sister. We are not going over there."

"She's probably going to want to see that I'm all right, though."

"Then she can come over herself. Or we'll see her tonight, anyway." He rolls his eyes at her, although she can tell he's doing it only for show. "Honestly, doctors make the worst patients."

"You mean when you sprained your ankle and I had to practically tie you to the couch?"

"Well, I... was speaking from experience."

She laces her fingers through Jack's, and they fall quiet for a couple of minutes. She's not entirely sure what Jack's thinking, but... "That poor man."

He squeezes her hand. "I know. But it could have been so much worse," he says, and looks away. She wonders what his dream was about. Decides she doesn't really want to know.

* * *

"You're _sure_ there's only one in there?" Juliet asks.

Rachel crosses her arms over the top of her belly, which is roughly the side of Canada by now. "You? Are obnoxious."

"Yeah, well, I have a list of revenge tactics to work my way through, still. Just wait until I start taking pictures while you're in labor."

"I so never did that."

"The pictures prove otherwise."

"Ladies, can we at least avoid bloodshed at a children's holiday musical production?" Niall asks.

"No one asked _you_ to play peacekeeper," Rachel snits at him, and Juliet laughs.

"Uh..." Jack gestures at the dimming lights all around them, and she bites her lip to keep from smirking at him. _Right, because we can't tell it's getting darker in here._

But keeping a straight face ceases to be an effort as she touches the bandage on her forehead, suddenly remembering the way Rachel had sobbed when Juliet had called her earlier this afternoon. _I thought, I just thought, I was so scared,_ Rachel had stammered over and over, and Juliet didn't really know what to tell her except that she was going to be fine and they were still on for David's recital, and _calm down_ _calm down_ _calm down_.

Now they sit through what must be close to an hour of nervous little kids plinking their way through an assortment of Christmas songs and easy classical pieces, and it seems incomprehensible that only six years ago, the four of them were packed into a sweating crowd at a Nirvana concert.

Midway through, Rachel glances down at the program. "He's second-to-last?"

"Yeah, sorry," Juliet whispers back.

"No, I - well, I'm gonna have to get up to pee soon, but - he must be considered really good, right?"

Juliet looks up at the boy on stage right now, probably around David's age and clearly concentrating hard through his rendition of Jingle Bells. "...Yeah," she says, the news managing to dawn on her in a whole new way. "I mean, for his age." She's been listening to him practice non-stop, and yeah, he's really good or... no, or maybe this kid just started a lot later than he did?

The woman in front of them turns around and gives them a dirty look, and even Jack pokes her, so they quiet down.

Finally it's David's turn, and he looks nervous and skinny and when he bows hastily at the crowd, his striped tie dangling, she has to bite back a laugh, because he's impossibly cute, but that tie is _ridiculous_ on him. He takes his spot on the bench and hesitates, his hands hovering over the keys as he composes himself like a miniature adult, the calm stealing over his face.

And when his hands hit the keys, he's not quite her little boy anymore, or at least in that moment, his fingers moving carefully and deliberately and gracefully over the keys, not the surgeon's hands like Christian had guessed on the day he was born. Hitting every note, hands criss-crossing, his head bent down, his eyes hardly darting to the page. Rachel breathes in and Jack is gripping Juliet's good hand so tightly she has to shake it in his grasp to get him to loosen up. On the other side of him, Margo's got her little camcorder out, Ray just shaking his head and smiling. The music soars and Juliet notices the couple in front of them exchange a raised-eyebrow glance.

When David finishes, there's a moment of silence, then applause from every corner of the room, thunderous, almost, and David waits a beat before rising, his face still expressionless, his lips pressed into a straight line. He bows again, just like they taught him, but this time holding onto his tie. It's only in the last moment before he slips from the stage that a beaming smile finally overtakes his face.


	72. That

**So... G****ood thing Ani DiFranco is prolific. I was fine with using her quotes back when this was supposed to just be a three- or four-shot. Seventy-something chapters later... Sigh. BUT I CAN'T STOP. At least she's appropriately '90s.**

**Also: When you're done with this, go read the first chapter of "Message in a Bottle" here on this site. It's a Suliet(Skate/Jacket) story in the M-rated section, but doesn't have sexytimes in it (yet)? Anyway, I really like this story so far and want the author to have more reviews so she will write more! Go! Support!  
**

* * *

_There we were washed up on the curb _  
_As the rush hour traffic went out with the tide, _  
_and I was aware that with every word spoken and shared_  
_ I could see her shaking subside._  
_ I said, sister, looks to me _  
_like you're going to be fine._

- Ani DiFranco, "Small World"

* * *

**Spring 1999**

Want is a funny word, when you really think about it. You can want something as simple as a glass of water. You can want something as big as a house. You can want a baby. You could even, let's say, just hypothetically, want to buy a medical practice.

For a long time, Juliet didn't really let herself want anything. But she wants this. Until now, she'd always tried to fight emotions with logic, with varying amounts of success. And she can't put her finger exactly on _why_ she wants to buy Edmund's share so much, only that she does, like there's this sense of constantly swelling indignation over everything he did to the woman who's become her friend and mentor, and _fuck_ him.

Maybe it _is _logical, though. She could make so much more money in private practice, over the long term. It would give her more time for David (and, well, whatever little beings just may want to come along. Just hypothetically). But to do it, she'd have to sign over money they even don't have. Michelle had taken a second mortgage out on her house just to pay off Edmund, but she's not going to wait for Juliet forever. Now she's got only a couple months left on her residency, and Jack's getting increasingly impatient that Juliet hasn't even been interviewing for other jobs.

Because where are they supposed to get the money?

It's not like his parents couldn't easily loan it to them anything.

Nope. Not at all.

* * *

"Are you insane? Have you seen someone about this? Like a therapist? Like, an _expensive_ therapist?" Rachel pauses from her mini-rant to root through her salad, popping a walnut into her mouth, but she doesn't lower her eyebrows any.

"Yes, I saw a therapist for my totally reasonable and well-thought-out plan for long-term financial and familial happiness."

"...Which entails asking your in-laws for $60,000." Rachel smirks.

OK, so when she puts it that way... it sounds pretty awful. This isn't a ride to the airport. This isn't two days a week of free baby-sitting. Juliet twists in her seat. "It wouldn't be a gift. We'd definitely pay them back. Probably within two years, maybe less than that. And it's not like they don't _have_ it."

"Your food's getting cold, by the way."

"Thanks, Mom." Even so, Juliet bites into her mostly untouched panini, chewing a single bite for far too long. She'd thought lunch with her sister was supposed to be _calming_ her nerves, not getting her more worked up. Probably why she'd waited so long to even bring it up. Months, really, or at least halfway through this lunch. They'd spent most of their time today discussing:

- Johannah's sleep schedule;

- and whether David's soccer coach is actually trying to flirt with Juliet or if he's just that skeevy with everyone else, too;

- and the air strikes in Yugoslavia;

- and those crazy guys who are trying to fly around the world in an air balloon;

- and what's going to win at the Oscars this weekend (Juliet's pretty sure the Academy won't be able to pass up a war movie with Tom Hanks in it, but Rachel's _convinced_ it's going to be "Shakespeare in Love"), and...

Yeah, Juliet had waited almost as long as possible to bring up the fact that she kinda sorta wants to borrow $60,000 from her in-laws, and they're supposed to be asking them about it tonight. OK. _Fine._

Speaking of Johannah: She squawks, one of those angry goat-like grunts, and Rachel leans over to jiggle the stroller. "So what's Jack say?"

"That I should get a hospital job. Or we should get a loan." No, no, Rachel's probably right, this is stupid. They'll get a loan, at a ridiculously high interest rate thanks to their lingering crappy credit rating (thanks to the now-paid-off credit cards they'd used a little too freely back in Michigan), and cut out extras, and no more vacations, and ix-nay on nice dinners out, and maybe... put off having another baby and... her mouth goes dry. It's a Catch-22. Working in private practice is supposed to give her _more_ time for a baby. "You think they'll say no?"

"No, I think they'd give it to you. I mean, I'm pretty sure they actually like you better than their own son. Granted, I still think you're incredibly stupid to be asking them."

"Well," Juliet says quietly. She forces herself to take a sip of her iced tea. "Jack..."

"Doesn't want to do it," Rachel supplies.

"I don't get it."

Her sister's jaw drops. "I'm sorry, have you actually met your husband?"

"Yeah, well. Sometimes I think he's too sensitive."

Rachel snorts. "Sometimes? Juliet, in case you haven't noticed, he's got issues about his parents. But you still kind of have to.. respect that, right?"

"I know he does. But... Christian's been sober for so long now. Sometimes I think he just wants to punish them for what it used to be like. They're good grandparents."

Something she'd never really expected. Margo's too permissive for sure, but she'd actually listened when Juliet told her no video games. They'd taken David to see the Doug movie last week, and had bought Dodgers season tickets last year so Grandpa Ray could take David whenever they wanted, and during the second week of David's Christmas break, Juliet and Jack had let his parents take David to Chicago to visit Margo's side of the family. David idolizes Jack's teenaged cousins, Toby and Will, and he'd returned bubbling over with all the things they'd done. Bowling! Going to the Field Museum! Watching MTV! Snowboarding! And Christian had even built a freaking _birdhouse_ with him.

_Grandpa showed me how to use a hammer,_ David had reported back proudly.

"Maybe he's jealous of that," Rachel says now. Johannah, kicking her legs, ups her volume a little, and Rachel leans over to pick her up before it gets out of hand in a restaurant that's not particularly family-oriented. Marble floors, potted plants. No cans of crayons on the tables here.

"So is that a good enough reason not to ask..." Juliet trails off, reaching out her arms, because her niece is ridiculously cute, and that's distracting. Obediently, Rachel hands over the baby.

Johannah is warm and solid and wriggly, and quiets down in Juliet's arms, and somehow she's vastly different than all the babies Juliet holds at work in a given week. She's got Rachel's little bow of a mouth, but otherwise everyone always says she looks just like Juliet. Which is really only fair considering David is looking more and more like Rachel the older he gets. The universe (and/or genetics) does like to play games, it turns out.

"Hello, little one," Juliet coos at her, stroking the palm of the baby's hand. She watches her niece's fingers curl around her thumb. Johannah wiggles her tiny feet. (Were David's toes really ever that small?) "Hello. Hey there, little girl."

She doesn't really feel about discussing this money thing, still. There's still a smile on her face that her niece put there. And she's been turning it over and over in her head. Jack's against it, of course. He's obviously still touchy about his parents, but things really have been fine with them for _so_ long. At least in a family sense.

At work it sounds like a slightly different story, but doesn't Jack even understand what he has? His father may be blunt, but he cares about seeing Jack succeed. Unlike Juliet's father (fathers?), Jack's at least notices he exists. And if it were really so bad, wouldn't he just find another job? Well, no, because he's at St. Seb's seeking his father's approval. And Juliet doesn't want to touch that issue with a 10-foot pole.

This is too complicated.

Maybe it all goes back to the day at the animal shelter. David had been bugging them for a puppy forever, which... no way. They'd finally told him he could get a kitten or a bunny once he turned eight. David had decided against the bunny, which Juliet was oddly relieved about.

Anyway: Mistake: Juliet and David were supposed to pick up Jack from St. Seb's on the way to the shelter. Except when she dialed the nurses' station from her cell phone, her car idling at the curb, the nurse who picked up told her to hold on... and then put her on hold... and they waited, and waited, and waited, until a driver behind them blew their horn. She hung up, circled the block, double-parked again, and then out the glass doors, here came... Christian.

She rolled down her window and so did David. _This should be good._

"Well, hello there. Jack's..." Christian hesitated. "He's staying with a patient right now."

"Nooo," David howled from the back seat.

Juliet winced internally, trying to keep her face neutral. "David," she said quietly. "It's OK. Another day."

"That's what happened _last_ time! That's not fair!"

She heard the thump of his feet against his seat. They'd tried to go to the animal shelter on Friday. Jack had called from work right before they were supposed to leave. And she didn't trust herself enough to say the right thing.

Christian shifted from his left foot to the right, his long white coat fluttering in the breeze. "I'd stay instead of Jack but - it was his surgery."

Somehow she found her voice. "Right. OK, thanks. We'll see you later." _I'm not mad. I'm not. This is all perfectly fine. I'd do the same thing if I had to._ Juliet started to roll up her window, but Christian held up his hand.

"Wait. I could go with you, if you still want to go today. I hear someone is supposed to be getting a little kitten today." He looked over at David, and Juliet glanced in her rearview mirror. Mad eight-year-old pouting in the back seat, and her heart lurched at the angry disappointment on his face.

Even so, she opened her mouth to decline. But David had started nodding. "You will? OK. Can we still go today, Mom? Please? Please please please?"

Once all three of them were in the car, Christian kept up a steady conversation with David, telling him about the pets he'd had when he was growing up, and how their dog, Casper, is great but he's a lot of work, and they have to have a dog walker for when no one's home, and David's parents were _so smart_ to be getting a cat instead. (Somewhere in there, Juliet remembered her dog Georgie, felt tears prick behind her eyes.)

January wasn't really kitten season, but at the shelter there were still three wire-fronted cages full of sleeping kittens clustered together. "How can I pick if they're all sleeping?"

"That one's awake." Christian stuck his fingers through the bars at a round-bellied orange kitten, fuzz sticking up every which way. It opened its mouth in a near-silent mew. The kitten batted at his finger with a pink-padded paw, and David giggled, Jack's absence the furthest thing from his mind at the moment.

"Mom! Look! Did you see that? Can we get the lady to open the cage, do you think?"

They did manage to spend time playing with other sleepy-eyed kittens, who primarily climbed all over them with claws about as sharp as pine needles. As David dragged a feathery cat toy across the shelter floor for the orange kitten, Christian looked over at Juliet with a sideways glance.

"Does he do that a lot?"

"...Play with kittens at the ASPCA?"

Christian snorted a laugh. "Jack. Staying at work too much, missing things."

What's she supposed to say, exactly? "He's under a lot of pressure." _David Bowie and Queen did a song about this._

Christian didn't look at her, just kept watching David. "He puts _himself_ under a lot of pressure."

They left with the orange kitten, whose name on the forms was listed as Ginger.

"Ginger's good though. Like the movie star. We shouldn't change it," David informed them as they headed the car, hopping from one foot to another, practically skipping. The kitten was mewing plaintively from the green plastic carrier they'd bought the week before, which Christian carried as Juliet rooted through her bag for her car keys.

"What movie star?" Christian asked.

"On Gilligan's Island."

"How do you know about Gilligan's Island?"

Juliet finally looked up. "Nick at Nite has the reruns."

Jack had come home that night to find David conked out on the couch, the kitten half-asleep in a ball on Juliet's lap. She'd wanted to read him the riot act, but guilt was written all over Jack's exhausted face, and she remembered her conversation (if she could even call it that) with Christian, and all the fight went right out of her. All she had to do was look at him.

It's not like he didn't know.

* * *

"You know, I was meaning to say before..." Rachel's voice cuts into the silence. "We could probably lend you, like, fifteen thousand or so."

Is Juliet hallucinating right now? She doesn't seem to remember snorting anything in the bathroom, oddly. No, she just wasn't paying attention. "What?"

Except Rachel repeats exactly what Juliet _thought_ she had said.

"...How the hell do you and Niall just have $15,000 just lying around?"

Her sister flutters a hand into the air. "Just some good investments here and there. You know. No biggie." She nods over at Johannah, in Juliet's arms. "I don't know, does she look gassy to you?"

Fifteen thousand bucks is somehow 'no biggie' to a public school teacher and a freelance photographer on semi-permanent maternity leave? "Rachel, come on. I can't take that."

"You don't have to take it, if you don't want to. You could just borrow it. Really. It's not a big deal. I _want_ to do it. It'll help you get started, and it's good for my nephew. Besides, I just... kinda think you deserve it."

"What the hell did you _invest_ in?"

"Oh... it's boring. Who even knows. Mutual funds, or... something. I'll tell you what." Rachel smirks. "Let's make a bet. If 'Shakespeare in Love' wins Best Picture this weekend, you have to borrow the money. OK?"

"You're sure? Niall knows?"

"We're in total agreement over this," her sister assures her.

_Must be nice,_ Juliet thinks, but then Rachel must read it on her face or something, because her expression softens. "It's a big deal, buying into a practice. You're not always going to agree on every single thing, you know."

"I know."

"I just mean..." Rachel fiddles with her water glass. "It's how you go about things that matter, you know?"

"I know," Juliet replies, even though the hesitation in her own voice has to be obvious.

Rachel reaches out and tweaks her daughter's foot. "So when are you and Jack gonna have another one of these?"

_Somewhere in the next 12 to 18 months? Because we're crazy or desperate or happy or unhappy or any of the above?_ "I don't know." Despite her frustrations, her anxiety, her residual anger even _remembering_ the day with the animal shelter, Juliet has to hide a sappy, embarrassed smile behind her hand. "Timing's gotta be right."

Johannah squirms in her arms, making little pecking motions with her head now, and Juliet passes her back over so Rachel can feed her.

It's funny, Juliet thinks, as Rachel drapes a blanket over her shoulder and gets the baby set up. Rachel had said all she'd ever wanted, after David was born, was to have a baby. But Juliet never would have pegged Rachel as maternal. Loving aunt, fun baby-sitter to be sure. She'd always had a way of talking to David like she could envision the person he'll become someday, not just who he is right now.

And sure, of course, of course Juliet knew Rachel would be a good mother, but... isn't Juliet supposed to the experienced one here? She'd expected Rachel's pregnancy and at least the first few weeks of Johannah's life to be full of late-night phone calls and worried questions about whether this or that was normal, how to differentiate real contractions from Braxton-Hicks, how to cope through that late-pregnancy insomnia, what to do when the baby was gassy, wouldn't stop crying, only accepted one brand of pacifier but the only 7-Eleven still open this late didn't have that kind and oh my god how hard IS it for the 7-Eleven to have a little variety?

Or how, exactly, to get poop stains out of the carpet.

Instead, though, Rachel is just seeming to glide through it all like it doesn't faze her a bit. "I mean, how hard is it to change a diaper, really?" she'd pointed out to a gaping Juliet on that very first day.

Funny thing is though, she was crying when she said it. Hormones are the one thing it looked like Rachel couldn't get control over.

Now Rachel cuddles Johannah up close to her, and she looks down at her daughter with a mix of love and something Juliet can't quite define. It looks a little like sadness, really, although it can't be that. Maybe Rachel's thinking about their mom, everything that she's missed.

At least Jack has parents. Overly involved, possibly fakely concerned parents, sure, but parents who fire up the barbecue grill on summer holidays and take David to movies and water parks. Over the years Juliet's lost her cautious fear of them, and she's not sure, exactly, whether she's being objective or fair or whether it's made her unable to understand Jack sometimes.

"So do we have a bet?" Rachel asks her now.

"OK. You're on." Whatever. Juliet hadn't even _seen_ "Saving Private Ryan," but seriously. War movie. Tom Hanks. It's a done deal.

Even so, Rachel rolls her eyes, reaching out for her water glass, but when she looks back up, her hand jerks suddenly, water sloshing out of the glass.

"Rach?" Juliet's half-rising out of her chair, but Rachel's shaking her head, her long hair tumbling down her shoulders. "No, no, it's fine, I just - sleep deprivation, you know?" Except she can't seem to remember to keep her mouth shut. Keeps stealing little glances over Juliet's shoulder.

Juliet finally turns around, too, and for a second, everything looks totally average: Power lunchers in suits, a couple of Bermuda-shorted tourists kicking back, green-and-white marble floors, potted plants, skylights, white tablecloths. And no crayons in sight. But then Juliet forgets to look for whatever Rachel's staring at, because Michelle Burke's slimy ex-husband is sitting two tables over.

"Ugh! He's supposed to be in Miami," Juliet comments under her breath.

"WHAT?!" There's the shattering of glass, and Juliet jerks her attention back to her sister, the water pooling on the table, splattering down to the floor. Glass shards cover the table and Juliet's asking if she's OK, if the baby's OK, and people are looking over. Even Edmund looks over for a moment before he loses interest. Rachel just gasps, "What do you - did you - did you - "

"Looks like someone had a little accident here." Their server is standing next to them with a dishrag, and there's another one behind him with a broom and dustpan, and Rachel insists she's OK and Juliet explains she was just talking about Michelle's icky ex-husband who was _supposed_ to have moved to Miami with some bimbo and it's not a big deal.

"Michelle - you mean _that_ Michelle - " Rachel starts, but then Johannah begins to cry in earnest, her milk-white tongue curling up in her wailing mouth, and Rachel raises her higher and then the baby spits up, and somewhere in the middle of all of that, Juliet forgets to ask what Rachel had been looking at before.

* * *

Rachel's mumbling about how something can't be a coincience as she settles Johannah into her car seat.

"How could... what?"

Rachel startles, glancing at Juliet over her shoulder. "You really don't..." She lets out a puff of air. "You're never - I - it still - " Tears flood her eyes and she screws up her face, trying to stop them or hide them, Juliet doesn't know.

"It's all right." Juliet steps forward, rubbing at her sister's back. "It's all right," she repeats. Postpartum depression is awful.

Rachel steps away. "I just - I, we, we have to go. OK? I'll talk to you later."

"OK," Juliet stammers.

"Good luck with the... with Jack's parents. But I don't know, Julie, maybe, maybe working with Michelle isn't such a hot idea. Maybe... it could get a little awkward."

What is Rachel even talking about? "What... would get awkward? Having to ask Jack's parents for the money?"

Rachel laughs then, through her tears. A little silly, a little crazy. The old Rachel, before David was born, back when he was a baby, and her sister was still fucked up and feral and avoidant. Then again, if this isn't avoidant, Juliet doesn't know what is. "Sure," Rachel replies, and then she's closing the back door of her car, quietly and gently for the baby in her little pink seat. Opening her own. "That."


	73. Numbers

_I want somebody who sees the pointlessness_  
_and still keeps their purpose in mind._  
_I want somebody who has a tortured soul_  
_some of the time._

_I want someone who's not afraid of me_  
_or anyone else._  
_In other words I want someone_  
_who's not afraid of themself._

_Do you think I'm asking too much?_

- Ani DiFranco, "Asking Too Much"

* * *

An ancient Ford Bronco is rusting in the driveway when Juliet gets home that night. She circles around the boxy truck, squinting in the late-afternoon sun and glancing toward the house for some sign of a visitor. None. So either they suddenly have a pool boy for their totally imaginary pool, or the robbers inside the house are trying to steal enough stuff to resell so they can afford a better vehicle?

She moves through the front hallway hesitantly, just in case her imagination actually knows more than it's letting on, but what she finds in the kitchen is... Jack and David.

Well, that was anti-climactic. She smiles to herself. At the table, David's sighing over a page of subtraction problems, a pencil in the balled-up fist he's got his chin resting on.

Jack looks over his shoulder at her, turning from the green pepper he's slicing at the kitchen counter, onion slices already in a little pile on the cutting board, the air sharp and bitter. When was the last time Jack stood at the kitchen counter chopping veggies? And the fact is, he shouldn't be standing at all, considering the stress fracture he has right now. Stupid (now-cancelled) marathon training.

She hates how Jack gets when he can't go running. Those metatarsals better hurry up and get better. He's tenser than usual, and he's been sleeping poorly what with all the bad dreams he's had lately. Although about half the time, those bad dreams turn into a desperate need for sex, and, well, she doesn't always mind that so much. And that kinda sorta alleviates Jack's tension, at least for a little while.

So maybe it's not _all_ bad.

"Shouldn't you be sitting down for that?" she asks now.

"I already _told_ him that, Mom," David reports, exasperated. "He didn't listen."

She drops her work bag on the counter, puts her hands on her hips, facing Jack. "And why wouldn't you listen to your son?"

"He's eight," Jack says helplessly.

"RUDE!" David declares. His new favorite past-time these days is reading Miss Manners out loud to whomever's around. She definitely still wonders sometimes where they got this kid from. Like the day she found him alphabetizing his own tiny CD collection.

"It _is_ rude," she says.

"Pointing out something is rude, is rude," Jack offers.

"And _you!"_ She flings a hand out. "You're a terrible patient. Sit down while you do that."

Jack at least has the decency to slide over one of the barstools, leaning against it with a grand total of one ass cheek. "I don't know why some OB-GYNs think they're actually orthopedists," he scoffs. "Don't you think that's rude, David?"

"Nope!"

Juliet offers Jack a fakely sarcastic beaming smile, pausing only to lean over and pop a slice of green pepper in her mouth. She'd thought they were going to Margo and Christian's for dinner tonight, but maybe she'd gotten that backwards? It would probably be better to have them here for the Big Awkward Request, anyway.

"Hey Mom, what's thirteen minus eight?"

Juliet got an A in Calculus once upon a time, but how does she even begin to explain how to get a simple answer like that? She's looking forward to middle school algebra, at least. "Um... If you were adding something to eight so you can get thirteen, what would you add?"

David glances down at his hands, fingertips twitching in sequence.

(It's cute how the stork dropped a left-handed bad-at-math piano player onto the doorstep of two future doctors.)

"Five?" he finally asks.

"Yep." And all this has just distracted her from the question she's been meaning to ask since she walked in the door. "Whose car is that outside?" Juliet finally asks, grabbing another slice of green pepper.

"Mine." Jack straightens up from the counter again, turning to face her.

"Um..." She stops chewing for a second. Is she in some parallel dimension somehow? Where Rachel has money, and Jack drives a crappy car and cuts bell peppers into long green strips as a late-afternoon hobby? She swallows. "What happened to the Mercedes?"

"Traded it in."

"Is he in trouble?" David interjects, as Jack reaches for a piece of paper tucked behind the toaster oven.

"What? Why?" she asks, ignoring David for the moment. "You loved that car."

"This is why," Jack says, holding it out to her, his eyes shining.

A printed-out bank statement from Wells Fargo. Balance at the bottom: $134,823.58.

She inhales sharply, looking at all those numbers in crisp, black, 12-point Times New Roman. Looks up at him almost afraid to hope, even though it's right there in black and white.

"We got it! You're gonna get your practice. We can do it!" and he's practically bubbling over with excitement. "Our savings will be low for a while, but we'll get that built up again in no time. Maybe I'll even get the Bronco restored. Could end up looking pretty nice with a new paint job. Right, David?"

"I don't know, Dad, it's pretty ugly."

Did Jack... Did he do that for her? So she could have her practice? She actually feels a little teary-eyed at the thought, and reaches out for him, but Jack maybe doesn't notice, grabbing for a dish towel, wiping his hands.

And maybe she should be giddy in addition to teary-eyed, but something isn't adding up here. Literally.

"But - the car was only worth, like..." Juliet trails off, because no, she's not actually sure what the hell the Mercedes was worth, but it definitely wasn't the $60,000 they still needed. Maybe now _she'll_ be the one counting on her fingers. "You talked to your parents already?" But she knows something's wrong, something's off, because there's no way he actually did that without her, did he? He didn't even want to do that with her _there_.

_Oh, Jack, what the hell did you just do?_

"No! Juliet, we don't need them, it's fine. I cashed out my 401(k)."

She doesn't say anything at first. She doesn't know a lot about retirement accounts, considering she's currently paid somewhere around the level of Bedpan-Cleaning Peasant. But she does know the government gets about a third of that money when you cash it out. Right? And what the hell would she say, anyway?_ You what?_ And then he would repeat himself and they'd just go from there anyway.

So she just waits for him to go on, standing here in the middle of the kitchen with strips of onion and green bell peppers on the cutting board for whatever fajitas he seemingly thinks they're all going to happily sit down for tonight.

He seems to know what she'd say anyway, his eyes darting over to David's back at the table. And David himself seems to find his homework more interesting than 401(k)s, anyway.

"Look, I know I took a big hit taking out the money now, but - "

"Jack, I can't believe..." Juliet presses her fingertips to her temple, and she_ knows_ she shouldn't say it, and she knows she could totally stop herself from saying it, but she really, really wants to say it anyway. How can she go from teary-eyed with love and gratitude to this annoyed so_ quickly?_ "That was so colossally dumb! Did you just give the government $30,000 to avoid - "

"Yeah? More colossally dumb than asking my parents for money?" he cuts in, his nostrils flaring. Great, this has already escalated into nostril-flaring territory. _That was quick._

"Yes!"

_"You're_ the one getting a practice out of this!_ I'm_ the one who's know going to be driving around a sh... a lousy car for the foreseeable future while you can get afternoons off."

"Um, excuse me, so I'm _not_ going into private practice to benefit our family? This is just some lark so I can go get pedicures? And like I'm not driving around a - "_ shitty car with two brand-new fenders, thanks to that stupid accident?_

She glances over at David at the table, then grabs Jack by the arm and hauls him out into the hallway. How the hell are they supposed to swear when they're in the same room with an eight-year-old? He'd end up with the most interesting vocabulary on the school bus.

Even so, Jack's snapping at her again before they're barely even around the corner. "Your car isn't shitty, it's _old_, and it's also a three thousand pound reminder of why we don't let my parents get too involved in our lives."

"Right, because your argument that they _shouldn't_ have bought me a car when I was eight months pregnant with a baby we couldn't afford? Yeah. That's still logical." _Sarcasm, table for two?_

"Well, we can't afford a baby now anyway if you're buying a practice!" They're shouting in whispers and it's the most ridiculous thing ever. For a second it feels like the hallway is bugged, like someone's listening in with a clipboard in hand, straining to hear their whispers, searching for weak spots.

"How is that... are you even..." Juliet splutters. _Focus._ "You're the one who just wrecked your retirement fund to make this happen! You don't just get to decide these things on your own!"

"Like you didn't just decide on your own that you were going to buy into a practice?"

"Because it's the best thing for us!" Does he not get that?_ Still?_ They've been over and over this. "I'd have more time to spend with David. And if we have a baby - "

"Unlike _me,_ right?" Jack slumps, just a little. "How was it going to be the best thing when it we'd end up all tangled up with my parents yet again?"

"You WORK for your father, Jack! How is THAT not being tangled up with him?"

"You - I - you don't understand! This isn't about YOU!" Their voices are rising now.

"How the hell is ANY of this not about me? It affects _both_ of us, Jack, don't act like - "

"And then you complain about how I'm working too much! Tell me, where do you think money comes from, exactly? Huh?"

"...Asks the person who just threw away a TON of it! Is this _really_ about - "

"Money? Obviously, since you're all - "

"Guys, be _quiet_, I'm doing my homework!" David howls from the kitchen. "This is_ important!"_

Juliet shoots Jack a glare, which he promptly returns, grabbing her by the elbow and leading her into the downstairs bathroom. (When had he dragged her down a hallway before, and why does she suddenly feel queasy?) But then they're in the bathroom and he lets go of her and slams the door and she feels a barely restrained urge to open the door just so she gets to slam it again.

Instead she advances on him, standing up as straight as possible, at full height so she can almost look him directly in the eyes. "Are we supposed to be equals, or not? You should have talked to me first!"

"Like when you asked me whether I thought you should buy into the practice? Oh wait, I forgot, you didn't ask me, you told me!" Jack clenches his jaw, his eyes flashing dark. "And here, _I'm_ the one who trades in my car, _I'm_ the one who cashes in my retirement, for _you_, Juliet, for YOU! You got what you wanted. At least try to act happy about it."

"I never ONCE asked you to do those things!" She jabs a finger at him. "We were going to ask your parents!_ Tonight!_ And then you go behind my back and - "

"Well, I thought I made it pretty clear I wasn't interested in asking -"

"Did it ever occur to you that they may actually _care?"_

"Sure they care," he scoffs. "They care about being in control. Do you have any idea what it's like to have to go to work, day after day, and work for someone who's told you your entire life you don't have what it takes? That you're not _good enough?_ And it doesn't matter how many people you fix, because you're never going to fix the one thing that - you know what? Forget it! _Fuck_ this!"

For no real reason, he yanks a hand towel off the rod and hurls it to the floor. Considering it's a towel and it just flops into a half-wrinkled ball, it doesn't actually prove to be a very dramatic gesture.

There's something so defeated in his face right now that it actually makes her chest hurt. He's not looking at her, his eyes dark and bright, and in front of her it's like David lost a Little League game, got a bad grade on a test, ended up on the losing side of a playground tussle. But unlike with David, she's not going to make this all better with a hug or a cookie or a trip to the beach, and her heart sinks, all - OK, maybe 85 percent - of the anger dispersing like smoke.

"But if it's so bad... why don't you quit?" she whispers.

"Because I keep thinking I can fix it." He rolls his eyes now, almost comically, despite a tear glinting in one of them, and she can see how even he knows how ridiculous this is. He leans against the wall and slides down to the tiles.

Juliet hesitates before crouching down in front of him, splaying the fingers of her right hand on the floor for balance. "You could get another job. It's been long enough, you have enough experience. We could just - let's just go somewhere else, I don't know. New York. Chicago. Hell, Iowa for all I care."

He's shaking his head, though. "You're going to buy your practice. Your sister is here. Our niece."

It's kind of hard to argue with that. She is bound and determined to be a good aunt, to be an important part of that little girl's life. Even though that part at the moment is limited to watching her in 90-minute bursts while Rachel desperately tries to nap. Juliet tries to imagine living possibly thousands of miles away from that sweet little face and almost feels like crying. "Why didn't you tell me any of this before?"

"Maybe you were only listening to what you wanted to hear. You wanted a family. Well, you got it. Including my parents."

_That's not all I got,_ and she thinks, and somehow it's like they're sitting in Jack's old silver Toyota, the one that burned in the riots, but this was _before_, and they're sitting in it up in the foothills, her feet propped up on the dashboard. Looking down over the endless twinkling lights of the valley, and she's 18 again and almost all alone.

Except that was a million billion years ago. "I got you guys, too." She's a little choked up; she clears her throat. "Now I get to live with two stinky men. Don't you ever do your own laundry?"

Jack laughs a little, even though she can tell he doesn't really want to. "I just don't want to feel like... like we have to do whatever my parents want because we owe them."

"Technically, I think we owe them a lot," she admits.

"Exactly. And I don't want to owe them any more. They want David to go to CCD. Did you know that?"

"What's..." She raises a hand halfway, twisting it up at the wrist. "I don't even know what that is."

"Catholic instruction. After school."

Juliet's shaking her head before he's even finished. "What? No. I don't... I'm not..." Not comfortable with that? That's not entirely true. Margo sometimes takes David to church with her, which Juliet suspects she does just to show him off to her church friends. But Juliet doesn't particularly mind that. David had once called it "kind of interesting," which seemed like a weird thing for a kid to say, but this is a kid who reads Miss Manners, so...

Maybe, Juliet admits to herself, it's just that she doesn't want to have to drive him through L.A. traffic to yet another after-school activity.

"I don't know," she finally says.

"Well." Jack throws his hands into the air. "That's what I'm saying. They already have enough pull over us."

She remembers being in the Shephards' pool with a burbling, splashing baby version of David while Margo fretted over why they (meaning Margo and Christian, not Juliet and Jack, of course) were paying for a sitter when Margo was available. And how at the time Juliet had thought the whole thing reeked of manipulation. Nowadays though, she's not so sure. Or maybe it's because they've successfully manipulated her? That would be a pretty long con, though.

"I didn't know it still bothered you so much."

"Well... for some reason, they _are_ OK with David. Aren't they?" He looks to her for reassurance.

"As far as I know." What would she have to look for, anyway? People don't come with warning labels, although that would have been handy at least a couple of times in her life. (Case in point: WARNING: Your boss will kidnap you. Do not drink the orange juice.) It's not like David would come home one day and say something like, _Grandpa is slowly whittling away at my self-esteem, and I'm slightly concerned about it._ "So now what?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do we do about all of this?"

He looks at her blankly. "You're going to buy your practice."

Her mouth moves around questions she wants to ask, about his work, about his father, and _Are you just going to put up with this, day after day, year after year?,_ but she thinks maybe it'll just be more of the same.

_What are you punishing yourself for,_ she doesn't ask.

* * *

That night as she's supposedly reading Alice in Wonderland to David, lying next to him on his bed, it's clear he's not paying attention.

"Do you want a turn to read?" she asks.

Ginger's lying across his chest, and he gently pokes at her pink toes until she yawns and moves her paw away. "Are you and Dad mad at each other?"

_Well..._ "Why do you think that we are?"

David kicks off his Power Rangers comforter, and Ginger mews and leaps down. David purses his lips thoughtfully. "I think that you are... because, because whenever I ask you an important question and then you ask a question too, like right after, instead of just saying the answer, it means you don't really want to tell me. So I think that means that you're mad at each other and you don't want to say so."

"We're not mad at each other."

"But you were fighting in the bathroom."

"Well." She rolls onto her side, propping her chin up on her hand. Smooths her free hand over his forehead. "We _were_ fighting, but we're not mad anymore."

"Are you mad because Dad wants to take me to ride ATVs on Saturday?"

_No, although I'm not thrilled about that, either._ What's she supposed to say, though? Juliet remembers asking her mom why she and Dad were always fighting. Then she remembers asking Dad the same question. No one really gave her any answers. She'd asked Rachel, which had earned her a scowl and a "Why are you always so stupid?"

This isn't that, though.

_(You got what you wanted. At least try to act happy about it.)_

"We have different ideas about the best ways to do some things. Like how I go about getting a new job this summer."

"Oh." David twists up the right half of his mouth. "That's boring though."

Juliet holds in a laugh. "You'd think, wouldn't you? Come on, do you want to read more of this?" She lifts the book.

"Can we go back to the part with the Cheshire cat when Alice first meets him? You don't do the voice as good as Dad, but you're OK."

"Well, that sounds kind of... _rude,"_ she says dryly, and David giggles. Juliet flips backward and starts to read.

* * *

On Sunday night, she watches the Oscars on her old dorm-room TV as she chugs along on the basement treadmill. Gwyneth Paltrow in her giant pink dress, and Whoopi Goldberg looking surprisingly lovely in velvet even though for some reason she doesn't have any eyebrows.

And the Academy Award for Best Picture goes to... "Shakespeare in Love."

"Son of a bitch," Juliet huffs under her breath.

Rachel's never gonna let her hear the end of this one.

* * *

**Summer/early fall 1999**

Time. Juliet can't believe how _much_ of it she has all of a sudden. She works from 8 to 5, with an hour lunch break that, barring emergencies, is long enough to go out for Actual Lunch, or to the gym. Or run errands, or drop by the Beverly Center. She picks David up around 5:30 from day camp, and then once third grade gets going, from either Margo's or Mark Twain Elementary's aftercare program. She makes dinner while he does his homework in the kitchen, and afterward she has time to play with him, read with him, socialize with the neighbors, read to _herself_ (she's getting through so many books and she hasn't had this in who knows how long). If Jack's home at night, she and Gemma can meet for a drink, catch a coffeehouse singer-songwriter, go for a late-night jog. She has time to help Rachel with the baby and take Ray to the grocery store.

Sure, when one of her patients goes into labor, Juliet can end up at the hospital all night, but that happens less than once a week.

Working 16 hours a day? That was ridiculous.

THIS? This is MAGICAL. _Really Jack, you should try it sometime._

Even better, the business is working out better than they could have expected. Word's gotten around that Edmund was no longer there, and that his replacement, as one referral had heard, was "really sweet," and now they have no shortage of patients. Even though Juliet keeps expecting someone to look at her and say something along the lines of, _Hey, wait a minute, you're not a REAL grownup, are you?_

But she totally _is_, and Michelle treats her like an equal despite her junior status. Every night when it's her turn to lock up, she sees her name up on the doorway next to Michelle's, _Dr. Juliet L. Carlson, M.D.,_ a little thrill of pride still shooting through her every time. And she knows, deep down, that she has Jack to thank for that, and she _wants_ to be nothing but grateful, but even so. Sometimes the whole thing just feels a little tainted, somehow.

Tonight, as she shuffles an armload of crap - files, purse, white coat, empty travel coffee mug from this morning - while trying to find her keys, a shadow moves down the hall and Juliet jumps a mile.

"Sorry! I am so, so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Michelle over-apologizes, trying to juggle her own armload of stuff.

"No, no problem, I just didn't know you were still here." Juliet's heart races anyway. Sometimes she still has dreams about DeGroot. Michelle had recently admitted she'd seen something in the news about it when that whole thing had gone down. "I didn't know it was that big of a story," Juliet had said, embarrassed. Who else had heard about it? The people she'd gone to high school with? The other residents in her program? How awkward. Yesterday she'd tried to look up old stories about it on the Internet, but couldn't find anything. Maybe there wasn't that much news online yet in 1996, though. She can't really remember. Rachel has always been better with that stuff.

"Got wrapped up in something later than I thought," Michelle says now. "All that blood work for Henrietta."

Juliet nods sympathetically. For some reason this patient has had loss after loss. Now she's pregnant again, with no guarantee it was going to work. "I thought you'd referred her to a specialist."

"I did, it's just..." Michelle sighs. "This is the one time I miss Ed. The _one_ time! He could look at that stuff, and - " She sighs again, more heavily this time. "It was nice having a researcher on hand. Ready to head out?"

Juliet locks the door behind them. They chat all the way to the parking lot, making plans for Friday lunch and trying to ignore the disgusting September humidity. They should become independently wealthy and summer in Maine.

_I can't believe we used to hate each other,_ Juliet's brain suddenly announces.

Well. _That_ was weird. She certainly never felt that way. It's not like Juliet had stolen her husband or anything._ And anyway, that was all Ed's doing, I hadn't even known they were still legally married until Michelle had shown up at_ - Juliet's vision blurs. The Volvo's open now, heat pouring out of it, and Juliet drops her stuff into the back seat. This heat is ghastly. She turns her face away from the car, trying to breathe in some slightly cooler air. _There. That's better._ She drops limply into the driver's seat.

"See you tomorrow," she manages.

Michelle smiles. "See you then."

* * *

**Please leave a review! They make me so happy. And you want to make me happy, right? Right. I knew you did.**


	74. Empty Rooms

**This one goes out to motorpool for leaving review #700, to makealist for her valuable advice, and to eyeon for never-ending support. Thanks, guys!**_  
_

**Also, this chapter was insanely inspired by "This Isn't Our Parade" by Santigold, so if you're so inclined, I recommend a listen of that on YouTube.  
**

* * *

_First you decide what you've gotta do_  
_then you go out and do it_  
_and maybe the most we can do_  
_is just to see each other through it._

- Ani DiFranco, "Hour Follows Hour"

* * *

**Early 2000**

Darkness all around her, but Juliet stays crouched on the catwalk, hands clasped in front of her, steady on the gun. It's all empty below her, the landscape underneath her bathed in shadows, and she's maybe too exposed up here, except - right there - underneath - and she kneels down, pulls the trigger before he even knows what's happening.

A bright red dot lights up on Jack's vest. "You shot me!" he splutters.

She just stands there for a second, plastic gun held at her side. "All's fair in love and laser tag," she finally says, and they laugh for probably the first time in a month. For some reason she's always been freakishly good at this, even though she should probably dial it down. Mom of the birthday boy shouldn't win, especially against third-graders.

After the game, plastic gun tucked in the back waistband of her jeans, Juliet pours punch and lights the candles on the cake in the back party room. Despite the fact that David's family party was officially last weekend, pretty much everyone has trickled back in again, even Jack's cousins Toby and Will, still in town after the holidays, and Juliet's only 90 percent sure they'd rather be surfing.

The one person not here? Christian. He'd rushed off to Australia the night before their family get-together. David was crushed, but there was some kind of complex medical emergency and they'd needed Christian as a consult.

"I don't even know the specifics," Jack had gritted out to her as they'd wrapped David's birthday presents up in their bedroom that night. "He just - this is so like him. Rush off any time something comes up with work, even when it's not even remotely his responsibility."

_Sound like anyone else we know?_ she didn't say. "He's been to every other birthday since we've moved back to California," she pointed out instead, trying to be diplomatic. Besides, if doctors on the other side of the world are asking for his expertise? That's actually pretty damned impressive. "Pass me the tape?"

"How can you take his side?"

"I'm not taking his side, I'm just - trying to be reasonable." She leaned over the bed, reaching for the tape herself.

"Nothing is reasonable about him." Jack started rolling up the unused wrapping paper, too quickly, wrinkling the edges.

She'd been up until 5 a.m. the night before at the hospital. Too tired to go through all this another time, a VHS tape rewound and played over and over. "Can we not have this discussion again?"

Now, post-candle-extinguishing, David and his school friends chatter about who fired off the most points in the laser tag arena. Juliet slices cake (much less complicated than slicing into a human being), with Johannah scrabbling to get out of Rachel's arms and inspect - or possibly smash a fist into - the icing.

Seeing as they're all trying to keep that little girl sugar-free until her own birthday next month, Rachel keeps twisting her away. "You don't even know what cake_ is,"_ she admonishes her.

"BAH!" Johannah shrieks, bending over backward and reaching out her little hand at the plastic dragons on the top of the cake. Rachel's cell phone starts chiming then, and she pauses in an attempt to dig through her purse. Juliet tries to make herself look busy distributing plates, but then Margo is passing them down the table and all the cutting is done, and Rachel catches Juliet's eye.

"You mind?" She's holding out the wriggling baby.

Juliet nods, her mouth going dry, but before she knows it, her niece is plunked into her arms. "Hey there, little girl," she whispers, hoping she looks entirely normal. Across the room, Jack catches her eye, and she looks away.

* * *

House hunting in California in January is just a little bit miserable. It pours every weekend they have to go out, and David sulks about tagging along. After the second Saturday, they leave him with Margo. Just as well, because for some reason Christian is still in Sydney and she could probably use the company.

Jack and Juliet have no idea what the hell is going on, and Margo keeps brushing off their questions. Jack's called his father twice, fearing the worst, that for some reason after all these years Christian's finally fallen off the wagon again.

His third call falls on their third house-hunting Saturday. "He seems fine," Jack says, dazed, hitting the end button on his Nokia as Juliet tries to navigate the 210 and not think about exactly how financially irresponsible it just was to call Australia on a cell phone.

Then again, financially irresponsible was probably the definition of their last-minute trip to Greece over Christmas.

"OK?" she prompts, changing lanes and squinting through the intermittent clear spots the windshield wipers offer through the downpour. "Wait, this exit?"

"Next one, I think. Prospect."

"So... your dad...?"

"I don't know," he says, and she can see how deeply the not-knowing is unsettling him. "He sounded sober. He said... he said it was a complicated surgery and he wants to stay at least another week to see how rehabilitation is going."

"You think he's lying?" The exit for Prospect Avenue comes up, and she turns off.

"I don't know," Jack says again, rubbing at his forehead.

As the car climbs into the San Gabriel foothills, Juliet tries to figure out where this latest sense of deja vu is coming from. Seems like there's always something, but - oh, yes, the two of them and baby David, driving through the Mojave, up into Flagstaff, talking or not talking about what is or isn't going on with Christian, and it's like nothing's changed, except "baby" David is nine, is learning the six-times table, was recently horribly embarrassed by a Sex Talk, and can play more pieces on the piano than she can even name by now.

So how are she and Jack somehow a million miles away from where they once were if they keep talking about the same things?

"Turn here," Jack says, looking down at the map.

Their landlord had kind of forced their hand, telling them last month that he wanted to sell their rental house. But all the same, they'd figured, why go through all the trouble of moving to another rental? They've been trying and trying to save enough for a nice place in L.A. Instead, here they are up in La Crescenta, where they can afford to get a house now. Without waiting. Without a loan from Jack's parents.

"You're going to be really far away," Rachel had fretted when she'd heard of the revised plan.

"Not that far. Half an hour without traffic," Juliet had promised her.

"Like there's never traffic. And what about gas? You're going to be spending - "

"It's already a dollar sixty-five a gallon. That's not great, but I can't imagine it can get any higher than it already is."

Rachel's face had twitched and contorted until a strangled-sounding laugh had forced its way out, and she'd half-bent over, waving a hand in front of her face and giggling again. "Never mind, never mind," she choked out, never bothering to explain what was so funny.

Now, as the rain dies down, miraculously, they stand outside a sprawling white house, all geometric angles, boxes upon boxes with a two-car garage underneath, at the top of a hill that looks out into the valley below.

The edge of the wild begins literally across the street from them, no opposing row of houses, just the San Gabriels rising tall and brown and scrubby. All around them, greenery is spilling out everywhere, California trying to take back the neighborhood, palm trees and sage scrub and willows, sycamores and purply blue lupines and wild yellow daisies, making the already-narrow street look even tinier, like a remote unreachable jungle. Something fragile in her heart chimes, like she knows this place, or knew this place, and it was home.

"They could ride their bikes on this street," Jack finally says, and he's standing farther from her than she'd realized for some reason. She feels like they're separated by something invisible, rising solid and unbreakable between them.

* * *

The real estate agent chirpily guides them through the house, all million billion square feet of it. Blue-and-white Spanish tile in the entryway gives way to pale wooden floors elsewhere, the empty rooms echoing with their footsteps: a dining room that would probably just end up a staging ground for David's school projects, a living room and family room divided only by a rounded archway - plenty of room for the piano - looking out onto a massive deck with that same view out over the rest of La Crescenta, and then Glendale and L.A. beyond it.

Kitchen with more of the Spanish tile, and a center island (just like Margo and Christian's, Juliet realizes with a jolt, but they doesn't make her like it any less). Upstairs the master suite has a bathroom with twin sinks and a soaking tub, of all things. A little sitting alcove. "This would be prefect for reading," Jack says out of nowhere, and she nods, trying to imagine it. Realizes that she can.

The four smaller bedrooms share two bathrooms. "Do you have children?" the agent is asking them.

"We have a nine-year-old son," Jack volunteers.

"Well, you hardly look old enough for that!" She probably thinks she's flattering them. _Yep_, Juliet realizes as she goes on. "What's your secret?"

Jack laughs. "Getting started early."

"Oh." The agent's smile decreases by roughly 50 percent. Juliet flashes one on out of politeness.

_Nice try, though._

They go through the second-largest bedroom, what would be David's room, another little alcove in that room that would be perfect for a desk. Then what could be guest room, or... Then what could be an office, or... Then what could be...

Why are they getting a house with all these rooms, anyway?

Juliet wants to say she doesn't know if they really need five bedrooms, and maybe they should just find a smaller house closer to downtown after all. But she remembers the happiness on Jack's face back in October and November and into December, and she thinks about all that wild tangly fake jungle outside, and she doesn't say it. Two more babies would still leave them with a guest room/office combo.

She wants this house. The rest of it, she doesn't want to hope for, not right now.

* * *

The next time it rains is the day of Johannah's first birthday party, Rachel fretting about keeping everyone in their tiny bungalow living room when she'd spent all damn last week repainting their patio furniture.

Instead, the house is packed with Rachel and Niall's friends, and Tahlia and her boyfriend, and Rose and Bernard, and even Niall's brother in from New York, not to mention toddlers and babies everywhere and Rachel's two pregnant friends commiserating over not being able to zip up knee-high boots anymore.

Halfway through the party, Rachel catches Juliet's eye, jerking her head toward the kitchen. Relieved, Juliet puts down her cup of tea and trails Rachel into the kitchen, David following after her. Poor kid. The next-youngest child at this shindig is all of two years old, everyone else in that particular social circle having waited until a reasonable age to reproduce. Jack's stuck at work with Christian today, who had returned from Sydney without a lot of fanfare, but Tahlia's boyfriend had brought David out to the driveway to shoot hoops before the rain got too heavy.

In the kitchen, Rachel is peeling back the foil from three trays crammed full of naked cupcakes.

"So, we were so busy dealing with the change of venue that I sort of failed on the icing front," she says guiltily, and for a second, it's the Rachel Juliet remembers from their childhood, frantically trying to finish her homework on the way to school in the morning.

"And now you need your little sister to help you."

"I can help too," David volunteers.

"Aw, thanks, kiddo, but it's OK. Why don't you go back out to the party? Your mom and I can handle this."

He frowns. "Everyone else is grownups and babies. It's boring."

Rachel's eyes flicker over to Juliet, silently asking for help, and Juliet wonders what exactly she's trying to do here as she pulls out two Tupperware containers, one of homemade pink icing, another of chocolate. "Aunt Rachel and I are going to have some sister time."

David looks disappointed, but it's not really about being banished. "No vanilla?"

"That's not polite," Juliet points out. "It's not your birthday."

"If you give us a few minutes I'll make a vanilla one just for you," Rachel promises him.

His eyes brighten. "You can do that?"

"Contrary to what your mom thinks, not all baked goods come from the store."

"You know I used to work in a bakery, right?" Juliet can't help pointing out.

"Which is where you got the burn scar on your hand, right?"

"Yes, but that was on muffins, not cupcakes."

Rachel rolls her eyes, sliding the bowl of pink icing across the butcher block table toward Juliet. "All right, ten minutes, kiddo," she says to David, who retreats with a Miss Manners-approved "Thank you, Aunt Rachel."

"I think you just conned him," Juliet tells her sister.

"Who's getting a custom-made vanilla cupcake here, him or me?" Rachel glances toward the doorway before ambling toward Juliet. "So, um," she begins in a low voice, and Juliet instinctively finds herself leaning closer. "I peed on a stick this morning, and... I'm a hundred percent preggers."

Juliet's first reaction is joy, followed by something much less noble than joy, like an elevator plummeting 40 stories before crashing into the Lobby of Jealousy. "That... was fast." That... was not polite, was it?

Rachel hardly notices, laughing again, tears in her eyes. "I know! I know, it was _so_ stupid, but I just - we love her so much, we could hardly help ourselves."

Juliet should probably laugh too, and hug her sister, so that's what she does. "This morning?" she repeats, like Rachel hadn't just said that.

"Yeah!"

"But... you're not telling anyone else this soon, right?"

"Well, no, obviously not, but - if something happened, I'd obviously want you to know."

And here's the thing: Once upon a time, back when kids were shoving her against lockers at school, back when she sat alone on the bus because not even Rachel would sit with her, back when Jack told her he'd slept with someone else, [back when DeGroot had her in a fake little yellow house,] all those times and more, she'd known how to hide her emotions. Keep her face even and still. A rabbit observing, sniffing for danger.

But it's been years since she'd had things that she's needed to hide, really, and there is no muscle memory for this. And finally, finally, she feels her face twitch, crumple, and her chin trembles and then Rachel is getting closer, her forehead furrowed, her hands on Juliet's cheeks because Juliet's blinking back tears and pushing away the bowl of icing.

"What happened?" Rachel whispers.

* * *

A perfectly ordinary Monday in December happened, that's what. In retrospect, the fact that it began at work seems unfair, that it could happen in a place where Juliet helped pregnant women every damn day. At first, she'd been frozen with fear in the bathroom, pregnant and bleeding, but then the doctor side of her kicked in, and after all, how many calls did she field every week from anxious patients about this same exact thing? Most of the time it turned out to be nothing at all.

So she'd washed her hands and gone back to work as she tried to ignore the cold fear settling in the pit of her stomach. She picked up David and his friend Connor from after-care. Let them play in the house as loudly as they wanted, let them choose what they wanted to order for dinner that night, and picked at her rice as the boys wolfed down dumplings and sesame chicken and then disappeared into David's room. The cramps had started right around the time the food arrived, and by then they were getting too strong to ignore.

The cordless phone seemed unusually heavy in her hands as she eased down into the armchair that was normally bathed in the lights of their Christmas tree this time of year. That night she hadn't bothered to plug them in.

But Jack's office phone went to voicemail and so did his cell phone and she didn't leave a message at the nurses' station once they told her he was in surgery, because what was she supposed to say?

Instead she curled forward slightly in the chair, racking her brain, trying to remember the cramping she'd had early in her pregnancy with David. Especially one night when, what? Niall had come home late and they'd eaten pancakes around two in the morning? She'd kind of wanted Jack then, but she wouldn't admit it to herself. Now, she admitted it: She wanted him, _now_, wanted him to come home and sit with her even though someone else needed him more.

She pressed a hand over her eyes. _Please_, she thought. They've worked so hard, at everything, their jobs, their family, each other, they didn't deserve this, they just didn't.

Impossibly, then, the boys were standing in front of her, asking her for permission to watch TV, "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" scheduled to come on at eight. David had surprised her just the other night, after the Charlie Brown special aired, dragging her into the living room, plunking down at the piano and proceeding to play the entire score, grinning as her jaw dropped.

"That's fine," she managed to tell the boys, the perfect example of a Totally In-Control and Not at All Freaking-Out Mother. "Connor, could you call your mom first and see if she could come get you when it's over?" _David, could you call your dad and scream at him to come home right fucking now?_

By the time Connor's mother arrived, Juliet was hunched on the couch, pale and sweating and how was she even supposed to be faking that she was OK? "Are you all right?" Ann Marie murmured to her.

_Cramps,_ she mouthed, which wasn't technically even a lie, and Ann Marie nodded sympathetically as she herded Connor out.

The worst of it was over by the time Jack got home, Juliet curled up on the bathroom mat in her underwear and T-shirt, the side of her face pressed on the cool tile. She couldn't hear what he was saying at first, not that she was _that_ sick. Just that there was a part of her brain that couldn't process his panic, and she'd raised a hand to silence him, keeping her eyes closed.

"I'm all right," she said, even though she wasn't, and "Don't panic," she said, even though she was just a little bit glad he was.

Then he was down on the floor with her, asking about the baby, if she needed to go to the hospital. There _was_ no baby, anyway, not really, she'd kept telling herself while she waited for him, just an eight-week-old clump of cells and this was just the latest in a long line of lies she's told herself over the course of her life and somehow she got out something along the lines of there not being any baby anymore.

He'd pulled her to him, her head on his thigh, the rest of her still on the floor, left leg sprawled on the cold tile by then, his arms around her,_ I've gotta get you out of here,_ an imaginary voice telling her, desperate, and she'd forced herself to wrap an arm around his back even though her arm weighed a million pounds and she was pretty sure they were trapped immobile under 200,000 gallons of water, or two tons of steel, or maybe that was the same thing, or not.

"Let's get you to the hospital," he was saying through his tears.

"And how are we going to do that? Who's going to watch David?" She would be the voice of reason, here.

"That's not a reason not to go."

"Please, I just... I don't want anyone to know." She closed her eyes again, burrowing her head against his stomach. He felt so thin to her right then, running too much these days, and somehow the unfamiliarity of his body all of a sudden was what did her in, and her throat swelled and the tears came. "I wanted this," she cried into the fabric of his shirt. "I wanted this."

He bent forward, awkwardly, as best as he could without moving her from his lap._ If you say we can try again, if you say it wasn't meant to be -_ she mentally warned him.

"Me too." His voice came out shaky. "I know, Juliet. Me too."

Three days off from work were not quite enough, but in another sense they were almost too much. Who wanted to just sit around Thinking About It? So she'd thrown herself back into work, and chaperoned David's class field trip to the natural history museum, and then they went to Vermont, and Greece, and their landlord lowered the boom that he was selling their house, and.

And life went on. Mostly.

* * *

Rachel's face is full of sympathy, but Juliet holds herself back as much as possible as she explains. It was two months ago already, she's fine, they're fine, they're so busy what with buying the house, getting ready to move, all that paperwork and packing, and transferring records to David's new school, and hey, they haven't even had a chance to call back the kid's piano teacher, who's left them two messages this week, so it's not like she has time to magically somehow process grief over something that had barely even gotten started.

"Is that why you guys suddenly went to Greece via freakin' Vermont over Christmas?"

"David really did want a Christmas with snow. That part was true."

"But?" Rachel prompts.

"I didn't want to go back to real life that soon. And then we were already on the East Coast, so..." She shrugs. "Christian owed Jack time off anyway." Jack had left their Vermont B&B one morning and came back with printed-out plane tickets to Athens, of all places, and pamphlets for a ferry to Hydra Island, crystal blue water and white stucco houses repeating endlessly on a hillside.

It's funny, though, she wasn't sure what exactly she'd been expecting on Hydra, but... that wasn't quite it. Probably because what the pamphlets didn't tell them was the whole place was packed with stray cats, and the trip back home meant an 18-hour flight. But a week spent drinking ouzo and swimming in the Aegean Sea had seemed like a fair trade.

Rachel makes kind of an _oh, shit_ face. "Did you have fun anyway?"

"Yeah. I think so. And it was great to see David so happy."

She smiles. "That's the best part isn't it? I love seeing her so happy, it almost makes up for..."

Juliet nods. Rachel means the cancer, as if anything could make up for all those years Rachel was so sick. Hell, the universe practically _owed_ her Johannah. Owes her this new baby.

But wasn't that what Juliet had thought, back when It Happened? That she and Jack deserved that baby? Well, she's seen far too many unplanned pregnancies in her practice to really believe that. Things happen. Or don't.

"I mean. I used to think I'd never have kids," Rachel says, almost guiltily. She looks down, toying with the handle of a wooden spoon on the table.

"Rachel." Juliet catches her sister's wrist. "I'm really happy for you, you know that, right? Really." _Really._

Rachel is shaking her head. Smiles at her, a sad, sympathetic smile. "Never mind. You're going to be next," she promises, her words quiet and quick. Not that she can really promise a thing like that.

"I hope so."

"You will."

Juliet picks up the knife. "Let's get some cupcakes ready for my niece already."


	75. Little League Has Better Snacks

_We're in a room without a door_  
_and I am sure without a doubt_  
_they're gonna wanna know_  
_how we got in here_  
_and they're gonna wanna know_  
_how we plan to get out._

- Ani DiFranco, "Shameless"

* * *

Juliet's at the table forking up leftover pasta into Tupperware when Jack gets home that night.

"How was it today?" he asks, loosening his tie, glancing around at the cluster of boxes they've (translation: she's) only barely begun to pack up.

And yes, he'd fumed for days when his father had missed David's birthday party. But somehow Jack missing Johannah's party doesn't register as the same thing in his mind. She doesn't think either is particularly a big deal, but the fact that none of this has seemed to occur to him irritates her. Just a little.

"Fun," she says, which is entirely true, other than that whole pathetic-jealousy-over Rachel's-big-secret-news thing. "Johannah got her first taste of sugar." Juliet focuses on what she's doing, as though putting away leftovers requires the same amount of focus as spinal surgery.

"Then they never stop asking for it. David's asleep?"

She nods, finishing her task and heading for the fridge. But he catches her arm. "Juliet?"

Frozen in place, she finally looks up at him. What's she supposed to say? It's not like she can lie to him; he'll find out eventually. What's she supposed to do, stew over this for days or weeks? It's good news, anyway, damn it. "Rachel's pregnant again," she admits.

Jack moves his head back, eyebrows raised. "That was... fast."

She can't help it, she laughs. Just a little. "That's what I said."

"Are you OK?"

"Why wouldn't I be OK?" Juliet smiles, because smiling seems like the right thing to do, even though even she can feel how it doesn't go all the way up to her eyes.

"Juliet - " He stops. Too obvious, even for him.

The thing is, she _is_ happy for Rachel. Of course she is. She just wishes she could have that too. Right now. She'd be in her second trimester by now, and there have been moments in the past couple of months - not too many, not anymore, but moments - when she's wondered how, exactly, she's going to be able to handle the first week in July. Her due date. What would have been, anyway.

Unless she's already pregnant again by then. Not that she would be replacing what they lost. Just moving on. But is that too much to hope for? Juliet's been having these nagging dreams lately, nothing she can quite remember when she wakes up, but she knows deep down they're about pregnancy after pregnancy going horribly wrong.

This line of thinking is unproductive, though.

"Are you hungry?" She waits, the Tupperware still in her hand, the fridge door open, blowing cold air on them.

"Yeah," he admits, and she passes the container over to him. They're quiet as he takes off the lid, tears off Saran wrap, covers the pasta, microwaves it. Slowly, methodically, carefully. While he eats, Juliet wraps glassware in newspaper, tucking them into padded cardboard boxes. The latest step in their packing odyssey. But she can feel his eyes on her, and wonders if he's trying to figure out exactly what to say.

"It's going to be fine, Juliet," he says out of nowhere, and Juliet knows what he means, but she hesitates. They've been together far too long for things to be awkward now. Right? He'd want to know, though. Wouldn't he? It's not like she's been taking her temperature every day or anything, but she _has_ been keeping an eye on the calendar, and...

"I think we should try. The next few nights, we should try," she finally says, wanting to drop through the floor like that first day they met when the zipper on her purse jammed. Still less awkward than, _Oh, hey, I'm ovulating._

Jack grins, though, looking almost mischievous. "Does that include tonight?"

"Yes. It does." She raises an eyebrow.

He stands hastily and dumps the now-empty Tupperware into the dishwasher. "Let me just take a shower first."

"OK," she says, trying to fight the urge to at least rinse it, if not go through her typical prewash-before-the-dishwasher rigamarole. And also trying to figure out how this scenario could possibly be any more different than the night they made David.

* * *

David's piano teacher is a retired middle school music instructor with a wide, shiny forehead and a kind face. Even so, as Juliet and Jack sit on her floral-print couch, Juliet can't help but feel like they're in the principal's office. They're both sitting up unusually straight.

Maggie had called them a few weeks back, wanting to schedule a meeting with them, and since then, Juliet's been stuck between: 1.) She's increasing her rates, 2.) David spilled chocolate milk in her piano keys, 3.) {Unknown set}.

Juliet knows by now how good David is on the piano, and it's not just motherly pride (right?), so at least Maggie's probably not going to tell them he's not practicing enough. "I've been waiting to talk to you about this until I was sure," Maggie begins, after Juliet's and Jack's polite refusals of water or tea or coffee, but that just gets her heart racing.

"Is something wrong?" Juliet asks.

Maggie's face breaks into a smile. "Nothing's wrong at all," and Juliet feels Jack relax next to her. Maggie goes on: "Your son has a gift. What he has... I think it goes beyond talent. He can play something after only hearing it a few times. He also truly loves the piano. I think..." Here, she trails off.

But Jack shifts next to Juliet, and she can her his excited inhale. "You're saying - "

"I don't like to use this word, I normally would never say this, but I've been wondering if he isn't a... a prodigy, I guess you'd say."

Juliet lets the words sink in. _I used to worry because I smoked pot before I knew I was pregnant with him,_ she doesn't say, but that only gives her the urge to giggle, and she bites down on the inside of her cheek. She's never been the mother of a prodigy before, and she's not really sure what to say about that. "Wow," she finally concludes. "Thank you." That was probably not the appropriate thing to say.

Maggie laughs. "Well, don't thank _me!_ I could be down a student soon!"

"So - what do we do about this?" Jack asks. That actually probably _was_ the appropriate thing to say. His arm brushes against Juliet and all she can feel right now is tight, coiled energy radiating from him. She glances over at him, at his excited, open face. "What do you mean, you'd be down a student?"

Maggie clasps her hands on her lap. "I've waited, because I wanted to be sure, but... David is almost past the point where I'm doing him much good. I think you have some options here. If you don't want to pressure him, he can stay on with me, of course, but it's possible he'd get frustrated sooner or later. Probably sooner than later. You could contact a music school with any number of instructors - an after-school program, though - the only full-time music-track schools in L.A. are at the high school level, very prestigious, students need to audition to get in. You could also go with another private instructor. More advanced. Either way, if you want to proceed, he should be having lessons more than once a week. Two or three times, I'd say. At least."

That sounds like a lot to Juliet. She feels her forehead furrow. "I think we should let David decide."

"Well, but Juliet - " Jack begins.

"No, that's probably the smartest thing to do," Maggie says over him. "I do want to caution you, though - whatever you do, don't tell him what I've told you. That kind of knowledge can be too much for a child. It could even backfire. I've seen it before. They stop trying, thinking they don't have to really work anymore. They could rebel entirely. David loves the piano. I'd hate to see that dampen."

"Right, of course," Jack says, even though he's still practically thrumming with excitement. Juliet can tell he's trying to hold back a face-splitting grin. "Do you have recommendations? For a school, or another - "

Maggie smiles. "I have everything right here." She leans over and retrieves a folder from the coffee table that Juliet hadn't paid much attention to earlier. "There's the Carter School of Music, you might have heard of that - " Juliet nods, she'd seen something about it at one point, but she'd also still been in a post traumatic stress-induced daze when she'd gotten back to L.A., and had settled on the first phone number - Maggie's - she'd ripped off the Kroger bulletin board. "As for private instructors, there's Celeste Randall, she's very, very good. Has played with the Philharmonic for years. There's also... another idea."

"What's that?"

"He's young, very young. Was a prodigy himself. He's only taken on a couple of students himself at this point."

"How young?" Jack asks.

"Twenty-two. But he's performed nationally already. Headlining. I just thought... Since he's been through this himself, he could be a good match for David. His name is Daniel Widmore."

Maggie holds the folder out, and Jack takes it.

* * *

In the car she keeps saying that word over and over. Prodigy. Prodigy. Prodigy. How could they _not have known?_ She knew he was good, but... Prodigy. It's just, every parent is proud of what their kids can do... aren't they? Should they have been paying more attention all along? Prodigy. Prodigy. Prodigy. They've been so busy, finishing school, their internships, residencies, settling into jobs, moving halfway across the country and then back again, dealing with the fallout from Detroit, moving around L.A. County three times in not even four years. Prodigy.

And yes, maybe they should have paid more attention, or maybe this is just one of those things no one could ever really expect.

Either way, it all makes her feel a little sad, that she'd missed this, really. She remembers back once upon a time, when her own parents had been so damned surprised and happy by her report card full of A's. And so she'd vowed then and there to repeat it as many times as possible.

And mostly they were too busy with their own dramas, then their own lives again after the divorce. But every three months on report card day, she couldn't wait to get home.

(No wonder Rachel hated her while they were growing up.)

"Do you think we should have realized?" she finally asks.

"Realized what?" Jack glances over his shoulder, changing lanes.

"How good he is."

He looks at her like she's crazy. "Juliet, we _knew_ he was good."

"But _this_ good. What she said..." That someone could tell her something about her own kid she didn't even know. She presses a thumb to her lips. It almost feels like their son isn't just their son anymore. That he belongs to something else, too. Something bigger, more important.

_He's mine,_ she wants to tell the universe._ You can't have him._

But she knows that's not fair at all.

* * *

Jack, of course, hauls off and orders a bunch of books with titles like Raising Your Gifted Child. Juliet imagines Margo probably bought books like that once upon a time, and Christian probably ignored them.

She ignores them too, although probably not for the same reasons Christian would have.

"I just don't think we should heap so much pressure on him," she says as he removes the books from their plastic Amazon wrapping.

"We're not pressuring him. This is what he wants." It's true they'd talked to him about increasing his lessons. Also true: His eyes had lit up like it was Christmas morning.

"Three times a week?" he'd exclaimed. "YES! Awesome!"

And that's when she knew. Really. What kind of kid gets excited about _more_ music lessons? Prodigy. Prodigy. Prodigy."Maybe only twice a week at first. But you'd probably have to quit one of your sports," Juliet had cautioned. "Are you sure - "

"Soccer," he'd replied immediately, and a selfish disappointment shot through her, or maybe that was just the effect of mom/doctor-induced exhaustion. Soccer's through the school, and an after-care coordinator gets them all over to the field. Little League means so, so much driving. Almost all of which is left to her.

"Not Little League?" she'd prompted, ignoring Jack's huff of protest.

"Little League has better snacks," David had pointed out. That's diplomatic. "Or could I quit both and take art lessons instead? Or guitar? Guitar is cool."

"Let's stick with Little League," Jack had cut in, and David had agreed. Prodigy.

Now Juliet watches as Jack breaks down the cardboard box for recycling, tosses out the plastic covering and the tape he'd peeled off. She slides the books across the counter, reading more of the titles.

Being Smart About Gifted Children: A Guidebook for Parents and Educators. Encouraging Your Child's Musical Talent. Parenting Gifted Kids: Tips for Raising Happy and Successful Children. Anxiety-Free Kids.

Prodigy. Prodigy. Prodigy.

"You know he takes things to heart," she says. Obviously, _yes_, he does know that, considering the Anxiety-Free Kids book. "And Maggie said - "

"I know. I just think we should be prepared." He comes up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, leaning his head against her shoulder. She tries to make herself relax. "Didn't you say your parents never pushed you to live up to your potential? And that made it harder?"

_And didn't you say, fifteen or sixteen... hundred... times that your father made you feel like you were never good enough despite all his pushing?_ she doesn't ask. "Just don't let David see those books."

* * *

**Spring 2000**

Juliet stares at the phone in her hand, not even believing what she's hearing. Presumably Jack's still talking but she's not listening right now, only standing in the middle of their front yard as movers haul boxes out of their old place.

Finally she brings the handset back to her ear. Jack's still talking about the lengthy surgery he'd just gotten out of, how he needs to keep the family updated, wait to see when (if?) the patient wakes up.

"We're moving _today,"_ she cuts him off. "We're moving _right now."_

Jack heaves a sigh. "I'm so sorry, Juliet. Are the movers OK? It's not like you're - "

"They're fine. That's not the point."

The point is, this is all supposed to be a big deal for them. Buying their first house, finally, after all the work and the saving and the uncertainty and the mountains of paperwork. This is supposed to be one of the most memorable days of their lives. A Big Happy Fucking Day. But once again, someone else needs him more, and she feels like hurling the phone to the ground. Except the phone didn't do a damn thing to them.

Someone else _does_ need him more.

So what's she supposed to tell him, anyway? _Leave_ the injured patient? Tell people to drive more carefully, to not fall off ladders or trip at the top of stairs or dive head-first into the deep ends of pools? That he can only treat people born with problems or suffering from pre-existing conditions who can schedule surgery for mutually convenient time slots?

"OK. Just come to the new house when you're done," she finally says, and hangs up, not particularly waiting for a response.

She only realizes her shoulders are sagging when she spots David watching her from the front steps, and she straightens up.

What's she supposed to do now? It feels weird to be in charge of all this, all on her own. She can't call Rachel to come hang out with her. Frankly, Rachel has her hands full these days. Johannah's walking now, and anyway, Rachel's been practically brought to her knees by morning sickness. And she can't call Gemma, who's on vacation with her boyfriend. And it's not like she and Jack don't have other friends, but - if she has to be honest with herself - no one close enough that she would feel comfortable calling at the last minute and asking to come hang out with her and David and the movers for no real reason. Margo? Juliet's not particularly interested.

She heads over to David. "Looks like it's just you and me, kiddo."

He squints at her suspiciously. "Where's Dad?"

"He has to stay at work."

"But who's gonna help us?"

"Well, the movers are going to do all the hard work."

"But he's not gonna get to say goodbye to our old house."

"Well... If he wants, we can come by some other time and drive by."

David jumps down the steps and plops onto the lawn, out of the way of the movers, who are negotiating the ramp they'd laid down across their front steps. He looks like he's thinking hard about something, and Juliet figures the movers know what they're doing, at least for the moment, so she kneels next to him in the damp grass.

"What's up?" she asks him, but David slides away.

"What if Ginger doesn't know where to find her food and water in the new house?" he finally asks, only she's pretty sure that's not what he wanted to ask at all.

* * *

Their new house echoes even with everything moved inside. "I thought it wouldn't look so big once all our stuff was in here," David says thoughtfully. "We need to get more stuff."

It's true, they do need furniture, and Juliet manages a laugh. (She got her period today. It doesn't matter.)

They have a pizza picnic on the floor of their new family room in the shadow of David's piano, moved in by the professional piano movers two days ago. Juliet tries to mentally catalog all the little odds and ends left behind at their old house, trying to rationalize how she could maybe not go over there tomorrow and maybe-just-maybe wait until Monday evening to deal with all that. Or maybe stick Jack with those tasks.

Speaking of Jack: Her cell phone rings. She could answer, but she's also eating pizza with her son right now, and so she lets it go to voicemail.

* * *

Juliet has a hard time getting to sleep that night. She feels like they've landed miles from civilization, dropped into the middle of a jungly street she herself had chosen, but all alone, just her and David. With no curtains up yet, moonlight floods the room, making the unfamiliar space almost too bright. Also: It's just so _quiet_ out here, nothing but tree frogs and crickets and swishing tree branches. Further away, a distant rushing could be either the wind or the traffic from the 210 all the way down the hillside. Either way, it sounds far-off.

Also: This is the first time in four years she's lived more than 10 minutes away from Rachel. Oh, and also also: Jack's day had gone on for so long that he'd decided to sleep at the hospital, although in case he hadn't noticed, this is the first night in their new fucking house.

A soft knock startles her - the house is so big and they're in the middle of nowhere - but it's just David whispering at the door.

"Come in," she says, and he pushes the door open, letting in a beam of light from the flashlight they'd gotten him for backyard campouts.

"Can I sleep with you? Just for tonight? This house is really huge and dark and scary."

"Turn off your flashlight first."

David switches it off and leaves it on her dresser, skittering across the door and jumping onto her bed like he still believes in under-the-bed monsters. Juliet raises the covers and he ducks in next to her. Her heart pangs in protest as she realizes how few of these nights probably remain in their future. How increasingly rare they've been in the past year or two. He's getting so big.

They lie there in silence for a few minutes, listening to each other breathe, the ceiling fan turning lazily, the fake-jungle noises outside.

"You know what?" David says abruptly. "Connor's and Hyo's dads come home every night and they all eat dinner together. And, and on the weekends, they're there, like, all the time. I know, I see when I sleep over. So how come you're a doctor but you can come home and stuff, unless someone's having a baby right then? Do you think he doesn't want to be home with us?"

He says this all almost breathlessly, like it's been brewing a long time and the pressure finally got too great.

Then again, it probably has.

She smoothes a hand over his forehead. "Of course he wants to be home with us."

"Then why - " David rolls away from her. "It's so stupid."

"He's helping a lot of people. I know it feels really unfair when he has to work so much. I know it's really hard." Juliet almost expects her voice to break at that, but instead she just sounds so calm and trusting and diplomatic. How can she manage that now but couldn't with Rachel in the kitchen at Johannah's birthday party? She feels like two different people sometimes. "It's different for me because I don't usually work in a hospital, unless I'm delivering a baby. I don't have to work as many hours as he does. That's why he worked so hard to help me get my job with Dr. Burke. So I can be home more often. With you."

"But don't you get mad at him?"

"It's very complicated, David."

"But you didn't say no. So that's like the same thing as saying you do."

"Sometimes I get mad. And sometimes I get lonely. But - " She draws in a shaky breath. She probably shouldn't be talking to David at all about this. She imagines him someday discussing this with his biographer (because he was a prodigy, prodigy, prodigy), revealing how his dad was a workaholic and his mother admitted to him at the tender age of nine that she was angry and lonely. Oh, the scandal! "But I know that he's working hard so that he can help people. And so that we can have the life we do."

In this big fancy room in this big fancy house, it feels almost possible to believe all that. Believe it's all completely done out of altruism and not a drop of it has anything to do with Christian.

"So... when I was first born? And we lived alone together, just the two of us? At college, right? 'Cause I tell kids at school I've already been to college, a long time before they'll ever get to go. Were you ever lonely then?"

"You did get to go to college. You got to go to graduation when you were only a year and a half old."

"So were you? Lonely? Because we were all alone."

_Not at all like right now._ "Sometimes," she finally admits.

He picks at the edge of the comforter. "I bet you're glad I got bigger, huh? Now I can talk to you all the time and keep you company and stuff when Dad's not around."

"That's true, you can."

"Is it really OK that I'm going to take more piano lessons? You seemed mad."

"I'm not one bit mad. I just got worried that you'd spend so much time on piano that you won't get to do other things."

"But, I _want_ to do piano more than other things. Usually, anyway. You wanted to be a doctor more than other things, right?"

"Yes, and so does Dad."

David heaves a disgusted sigh.

_"But,"_ she continues gently, "I didn't decide that when I was only nine."

"So how old were you?"

_Fourteen_, Juliet doesn't say, because 14 suddenly doesn't seem all that far away from nine. "I was in high school."

"Piano is, like, the best thing. Because you can make stuff up on it, but then there's all these things you can learn to play and if I don't like something, I can just go onto the next. They're like puzzles I figure out. It's like a big mystery and almost nobody knows it. When do I get to meet the new teachers?"

"We're going to start meeting with them next week. And then we can all decide together."

"Mmm-k." He shifts, rolling onto his side, facing her. She can see in the moonlight that he closes his eyes, so she does too. Time passes, but not much, and his next question comes much, much more quietly. And out of the blue. "Were you really, really sad when your mom died?"

She has no idea what's bringing this on, but... "Yes."

"Grandma said? That my other grandma picked me out for you. Like, up in heaven."

Juliet imagines her mother inspecting a cabbage-patch row of babies' faces up in Catholic Heaven, plotting to smite her younger daughter with a teenage pregnancy. "That's a nice thought."

"And then I guess my soul zoomed down into your egg?"

She barely stifles a laugh. At least some of her How Babies Are Made talk had sunk in. "It's kind of that way. We can go over all that again soon."

"How old were you?" he asks.

"When you were born? Twenty."

"No, when your mom died."

She hesitates. _Twenty-nine,_ she almost says, but that's her age _now_. "Eighteen." Isn't he tired yet? Juliet's suddenly exhausted. It's been a long day.

"...That's only nine years older than me."

"David." Juliet reaches for his hand. "You know nothing's going to happen to me, right?"

"Yeah, I know. And anyway if you got sick, I'd just save your life like I did with Aunt Rachel." He yawns hugely, wriggling his arm away from her, stretching out. "I have really good bone marrow."

Juliet laughs, but even so, her heart swells with love for what's probably the billionth time for this wonderful, funny, prickly little boy. "Yes, you do. And what you did was very brave, even if you don't remember it. Let's get some sleep now, OK?" She yawns, too. "I love you, David."

He yawns again in response, and flings his arms over his head, scrunching down into the comforter. "Love you too," he mumbles, his eyes closing.

Just before sleep envelopes her completely, that word floats into her head again. Prodigy. Prodigy. Prodigy.

Except that's not what's important, not really. Right? She carried him for (almost) nine months. Held him when he cried. Watched him faceplant into a pile of snow as a toddler in the mountains. (Prodigy. Prodigy. Prodigy.) She stacked blocks with him and bought him a baby doll when he wanted one and raced trucks across their living room floor with him. She answered never-ending "Could Superman beat up Spider-Man? Well, what about the Hulk?" questions. (Prodigy. Prodigy. Prodigy.) She's slept in his backyard tent with him and worked with him on science fair experiments and waited while he inspected sidewalk caterpillars. She still lets him sleep in her bed when he gets upset or anxious or scared. He's her son.

That other thing? It's just a word.

* * *

**Please, please leave a review! You don't need to have a FF net account to comment!**


	76. Not in Portland

**Hi, everyone! Yes, I still exist. And wow, came back the same night that makealist did! Hiiii, makealist!  
**

**ANYway! Basically, I got busy, and then started overthinking my story (bad idea) and ended up with writer's block. The good news is that I think I'm "back" now, so there won't be all that long a wait for the next one.**

**Having said that, I did a little experiment on these chapters. There is a jump forward in time, but then the next chapter will have sections both from before this period and after.**

**Also: Please don't hate me, but you knew bad stuff had to start happening soon... right? That said, apologizing in advance. Yeah, you'll soon figure out why.**

* * *

_Don't fool yourself into thinking things are simple._  
_Nobody's lying; still the stories don't line up._  
_Why do you try to hold on_  
_to what you'll never get a hold on?_  
_You wouldn't try to put the ocean in a paper cup._

- "Hour Follows Hour," Ani DiFranco

* * *

**Fall 2000**

They must have done it on purpose.

Maybe that's the paranoid part of her brain kicking in, but really. She _knows_ these people by now, she knows _him_, know what he's capable of. Even off in surgery, assuming Jack has started again. She has to stop herself from biting down on the inside of her cheek because that could give away too much away. Instead she counts her breaths, slowly, timing the seconds, listening to a phone ringing off in the distance somewhere.

The widowers, really? _Really?_ He's doing this to intimidate her. He must be. The widowers are all lined up in the front, all nine of them, and she's frozen up here in this little witness box, starts reciting the goddamn periodic table in her head when she sees Isabelle get up and join the little cluster of her would-be executioners.

Most of the widowers are glaring at her. Two look sympathetic. Juliet knows Ben would have made them come here even if they didn't want to. Even if he _is_ face down on an operating table. He would have.

It doesn't matter. She's never leaving.

She knew what could happen from the moment she'd hit record on that video camera. Maybe she even deserves it, for her selfishness in coming here, leaving her sister, missing her nephew's birth. For her failures, all those women she couldn't (didn't) save.

All those lost babies.

So she stares back, impassive, until the door cracks open. She wonders how much it will hurt when they kill her. She wonders if her sister will ever know.

The door opens farther, and sunlight streams into the dark room, past the cluster of silhouettes at the door, and against her will, she's craning her head, trying to see, and somewhere that phone is still ringing, ringing, ringing away, and is that Jack, or is that too much to hope -

_Jack!_ Juliet snaps awake on the squeaky old leather couch in Gemma's cinderblock-walled office down in the admin wing of St. Sebastian's. Shit, she'd told him yesterday to call her in the afternoon and it's been... she blinks sleep out of her eyes. What time is it? Gemma's office doesn't have a window, no way to tell by the sun. And Niall! _Rachel!_ Jesus, did she miss it? She fumbles through her bag for her cellphone, which has by now stopped ringing.

Verdict: Seven missed calls from her husband, four missed calls from Niall. She doesn't hesitate, her heart racing, as she speed-dials Niall.

"Juliet! I was just about to come down there and - "

"Tell me I didn't miss it," she pleads.

"Not yet, but - get down here soon. They think, they think it's gonna be a C-section."

"The baby's breech?" she says, almost breathlessly. "Did they try an external cephalic version?"

"Juliet... Are you awake yet?" (She thinks about it. He's right. She's not, not all the way. She rubs at her face. She should have been expecting them to come back, but it really hadn't crossed her mind. That is, the dreams. The _dreams_. Not "them." There was no "them" to expect, not like people, right? Just the dreams. Why can't she wake up fully? _WAKE UP!_ she scolds herself.) "You know it isn't breech," Niall goes on, all in a rush, and his voice wobbles on what he has to say next. "Heart rate's droppin'."

Her own heart skips a beat then. "Niall, it's - I'll be right there. I'll be _right. There!"_ She clicks her phone shut, shoves it into her bag, jams her feet into her shoes. Glances at the clock above the door - 7:30! SEVEN-THIRTY! That 20-minute nap turned into three _hours_!

That's it, she's awake. Now, at least.

She doesn't bother folding up the blanket, just races down the hall, her bag thumping against her thigh. She shouldn't have agreed to take a nap at _all_, but Rachel and Niall had called around 3 that morning, apologizing, telling her it's OK, she didn't have to come, but they knew she'd be upset if they didn't at least let her know they were leaving.

"No, no, no, I'm up," she'd insisted. And so she'd packed a sleepy, pajama-clad David into her car and hauled him down through the hills and all the way to Margo's. "You're a kinder wife than I am," Margo said, yawning at the door.

To which Juliet replied, "I'm the one to told him to go."

Even so, by the time she'd gotten over to the hospital, it was nearly 4:30 a.m. "Some doctor you are," Rachel had huffed from her wheelchair as Juliet skidded to a stop in the hallway of Labor & Delivery. Niall was trying to simultaneously hold her hand and sign a clipboard full of forms.

Juliet tilted her head, pretending to be annoyed. "I'm not doing this as your doctor, I'm doing this as your sister. You could show a _little_ gratitude."

Rachel had looked at her strangely then, but Niall had laughed. Then they'd settled in for a long, not exactly pleasant wait. Timing contractions, ice chips, birthing ball, Rachel's hippy-dippy music on the portable CD player. By late afternoon, though, Rachel and Niall had shooed Juliet away. Because, look, if your sister's going to be at the hospital for 12-plus hours of labor, and you desperately need a nap, it's helpful to have a best friend for a hospital social worker with a moderately comfortable office couch.

(Is that how this all began? With that damned couch after they moved into the new house? No, no, it started long ago.)

Juliet's almost out of breath when she skids to a stop yet again, this time outside Rachel's hospital room. What a difference a few hours makes. Now the room is bustling, full of people in a rainbow's worth of scrubs, Niall separated from Rachel as they pump her IVs full of medications and click up the side rails of her bed.

Rachel doesn't see her at first, but Niall grabs onto Juliet's elbow at the door.

"Don't panic," Juliet says automatically, squinting as her eyes try to catalog the medications they're injecting into Rachel's IV, and then she spies the line for the epidural. "They already have the epidural in? That's good." Even so, her heart is racing. She's trying to act like this is just another patient, but it's not. It's not! It's her _sister!_ Niall doesn't need someone else panicking, though. "They can get him out fast and they're not gonna have to put her under. It'll be fine. They do this all the time. I did one on Friday."

She's not sure why she automatically refers to the baby as a boy; Rachel and Niall hadn't found out the sex of either of their children in advance. "I'll just make myself crazy if we do that," she'd told Juliet, and Juliet hadn't really understood, but she hadn't pressed. It was their decision.

All while Juliet's talking, though, trying to convince him (trying to convince herself), Niall's shaking his head. "They said you can't come," he says almost desperately. "I told them, I told them you were an OB - " his voice cuts off. He's grabbing her elbows with both his hands.

"I'm sorry, only one guest gets to come along for this ride." A nearby nurse. Trying to be cute about it.

Juliet opens her mouth, but_ I have admitting rights at UCLA_ dies in her throat when she sees the reading on the fetal monitor. Because she's not really important here, what's important is getting that baby out and making sure everyone's healthy.

"It's OK," she croaks, maybe to Niall or the nurse or to Rachel, who's finally noticed she's here, and her sister bursts into tears. "It'll be OK," Juliet says, her voice gaining strength, even as they pack up and wheel Rachel out of the room, Niall holding one hand, Juliet trailing after, then speeding up, grabbing the other for as long as she can.

"No, I _wanted_ her there, I _want_ her here, she had to be there, you don't understand," Rachel is pleading to anyone who will listen on this rapid roll down the hall. Juliet recognizes the pace. Not an out-and-out emergency, but there's not a whole lot of time for unnecessary bargaining.

_"Rachel."_ Juliet squeezes her sister's hand, hoping desperately that Rachel's tears won't become contagious. "They know what they're doing. I'll see you soon. I'll see you soon. I love you!"

"That's what we said when - " and then their hands are pulled apart, and Juliet stops, and everyone else keeps going. The swinging doors show, with each residual flip, her sister getting farther and farther away from her.

* * *

_I should've been there!_ It keeps circling her head like water headed for the drain. If only she'd only woken up earlier, if only she hadn't had that crazy dream, there would have been enough time to convince them.

If only.

And now she's missing her own niece or nephew's birth!_ Not fair not fair not fair,_ like a toddler temper tantrum in her brain. (She hasn't missed those one bit.) Juliet was there when Johannah was born, for god's sake. Nineteen hours, all natural. Rachel had been so determined, clenching her teeth together when Juliet had told her she knew she could do it.

"Oh, you _know_ it, huh?" Rachel had snarled under her breath, eyes flashing. "No, _I_ know it. _You_ don't. You don't_ know!"_

"Just let it go," Niall had muttered to Juliet. "Her nails are really long and sharp right now, trust me."

Now Juliet slumps into a chair in the hallway, agitated, and not sure how to distract herself, trying to keep herself from timing out everything in her head, what they're doing in the OR, minute by minute. Scrubbing in, setting up the screen, testing the sensations in her feet, legs, abdomen. Sweeping iodine over her belly. _Stop it._

It's Sunday afternoon and she's not even on call this weekend. Shuffling through her bag, Juliet finds her Palm Pilot and taps through to check her appointments for tomorrow. She should have tried to check her email on Gemma's computer before she'd just conked out on the couch.

(According to Rachel, they're coming out soon with phones that will be able to check email. Maybe that's true. Would be nice.)

It takes a little while to realize that annoying clanking sound is her own bouncing leg, the heel of her shoe tapping against the shiny metal leg of her chair. Juliet wonders what they're doing right now. Had the baby's heart rate stabilized at least? Or was it still dropping? She hadn't looked at the monitor long enough.

She could call David, but doesn't want to get him worked up when there's no news yet.

Besides, it's going to be fine. It's _supposed_ to be fine. It's just, these dreams lately, her killing pregnant mothers, their babies dying - she swallows. Maybe it's better she's not in there with Rachel. She curls her arms around her midsection, the hand with the Palm Pilot going almost limp.

She wants to talk to someone, anyone. Gemma's gone for the day. Maybe she should call her? Or call in and check on Dina, Rachel's friend who's watching Johannah? Should she update Tahlia? But Tahlia doesn't even know they're at the hospital. They're not close, not exactly. Not distant, either, but there's a world of difference between a sister you grew up with and one you didn't.

Out of sync with the rest of her, Juliet's stomach growls suddenly, and she realizes it's been a long time since she'd eaten anything. At least this gives her something to do.

_I should be there, I should be there, I should be there,_ her mind scolds her as she walks halfway down the hall, tapping her fingers against the sides of her thighs.

Inside the little waiting room, a row of vending machines hums expectantly. She stares at their contents, dismayed. Not sure what she was expecting, just something more.

She smooths out a dollar, gets a little styrofoam cup of just-add-water macaroni and cheese. David's always begging her to buy it and she never does. Juliet smooths out another dollar. Chips. She hasn't eaten since breakfast, begs a spoon off the nurses, nukes her noodles in their microwave. One of the nurses looks her over and smiles kindly.

(Can she tell? It's kind of been getting to that point, all of a sudden.)

She eats her makeshift dinner in the hallway. Grease, salt, chemicals. She's almost nauseous with anxiety, _I wasn't supposed to miss it. _

It all feels like it's taking far too long. She should have let herself follow along in her head after all. Now she has no idea. But she checks the clock; it's after 8:30 by now. _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I should have been there._

She swallows the last mouthful of rubbery noodles and her throat swells, her eyes brimming with tears. What if something happens? To either one of them? Or in a few months, to - she presses a hand over her eyes.

Footsteps shuffle in front of her.

"Know anywhere I could find a good aunt?"

Juliet jerks her head up, bewildered. Niall is standing above her in a surgical gown, the green cap up too far on his head. The doors swing behind him, revealing an empty hallway. A beaming smile overtakes his face when her eyes widen, blinking away tears.

There's a bundle in his arms.

* * *

Her cellphone rings again while she's waiting by herself in Rachel's room, waiting for her sister to come out of recovery. Niall's back in with her sister, the baby too. Juliet slides the phone from her bag. Jack!

"Hey!" she says quickly. There's guilt in her voice.

"Juliet, thank god, are you OK?"

"Jack. I'm fine."

"I called my mother, she told me - "

"It's fine," she says. But then a realization slams into her, bringing her close to tears again. Because, all through that scary scary hour, when she'd needed to talk to someone... she hadn't even thought of Jack. Had she? No, she must have. It's just... Jack's out of town. (Who could tell the difference anyway?)

"And Rachel? The baby?"

"It's a boy," Juliet chokes out, halfway laughing, halfway crying.

Jack's baffled by her tidal wave of emotion, she can tell from his voice. "He's OK? She's OK?" he asks, disbelieving. "You weren't answering your phone, I - "

"Everyone's OK," she giggles through her tears. "They gave us a scare, she needed a C-section. Before that I was sleeping down in Gemma's office for awhile."

"I got so - I had this dream last night, where something - something happened to you." His voice cracks. "And then all day I've been trying to call - "

"You know how bad the service is sometimes in St. Seb's." See, dreams are nothing. Everyone has them; here Jack's getting all upset over something that isn't even _real_. Her own dreams? Not a big deal. She had them with David, too. And it's not like Jack isn't already acting all over-protective of her these days, at least when he's not distracted by work. Now he's worrying about her from a thousand miles away? "It's Rachel you should have been worrying about, anyway."

"Have you eaten today? You said you took a nap, right? Mom said you went over there in the middle of the night."

"I'm fine. Breakfast in the cafeteria, Easy Mac from the vending machine."

"That's not enough! You know you need to -"

"Don't worry," she cuts him off. "Once I leave here... please, your mother has spent the better part of this weekend trying to fatten me up."

"All right," he says warily. "Get some rest. Crash at my parents' if you need to."

"Wait, so how was it? Did you finish?" He's been trying to run a marathon for years, and something's always happened. Work getting in the way, Grandpa Ray suffering a minor stroke, Jack's stress fracture. And now it felt like it was now or never. She'd finally told him, _If you have to fly somewhere to get the timing right, just do it. Next year is gonna be crazy.  
_

"I finished," he says proudly. "3:41."

"That's great!" She's proud of him, too, actually. It feels good. She wipes at her tears. She's getting like Rachel now. Jesus. Too many emotions.

"Thanks. I think it rained the entire time."

"Well, that's Portland for you."

"And I think I'm gonna lose a toenail."

Juliet laughs now, a real laugh. "That's disgusting. Don't tell David!"

"I won't." He tells her about the race, she shares the Highlight Reel of Rachel's Labor. Tells him about their new nephew's sweet little smushed-up face, his tuft of colorless hair, his teeny tiny hands. It's probably the longest conversation they've had in weeks.

Then Rachel is being wheeled back into the room, Niall and the baby right behind, and Juliet and Jack say their goodbyes.

* * *

Rachel is crying, silent tears running down her face. Just like after Johannah was born, but Juliet finds herself tongue-tied.

"So... I take it you're not gonna make it to prenatal yoga on Monday?" Juliet finally says.

Her sister chokes a laugh. "Well, I guess you'll all have to carry on without me somehow. Tell them I said namaste."

"Are you OK? Any pain?"

Rachel shakes her head, wiping her face with the tissue Juliet hands her. "Uh uh. I kind of don't think I'm ever going to be able to stand up again, but..."

"They'll have you up in a few hours."

"I'm going to fall flat on my face," Rachel says seriously. She nods over toward Niall. "So, uh, you want to hold your nephew?"

Juliet smiles. "Very, very much."

Niall steps forward with the baby, and she reaches out her arms. He's small and round and solid, his lips pursed up in a thoughtful little bow. His nostrils are impossibly small. She can't stop looking. "Here there, little guy," she finally whispers, stunned.

Behind her, Rachel gasps a sob. Juliet, still facing away from her, shares a glance with Niall. _She'll be OK_, his eyes tell her.

"Gonna go call Dina and check in on our big sister," Niall finally says, stepping forward with long strides across the tiny room. Tenderly, he kisses Rachel's forehead. "Be right back. Stay right here," he whispers to her.

Juliet watches them from the corner of the room, trying to imagine this, her and Jack. Five more months.

The truth is, she's afraid. Afraid of a lot. Things she doesn't know how to give voice to.

But none of that is important right now. They were scared about Rachel too, and here she is, just fine. The baby, too. Juliet sits carefully in the chair next to Rachel's bed. "He's beautiful."

Rachel bites her lip, smiling through her tears, staring intently at his face. "Look at him and his auntie."

"Yeah." Juliet smiles down at him, at the little bean of a body curled up in her arms.

"She still remembers how to hold a baby." Rachel remarks, reaching out, strokes his cheek, his forehead.

"I hold them all the time at work," Juliet says. Uncertainty creeping into her voice.

"You feeling OK? Want to get out of here soon?"

"Yeah," she admits.

Rachel takes her arm back, closing her eyes for a long moment, relaxing against the pillows. "Told you you'd be next."

But her second "Yeah" is halting, and Rachel opens her eyes again.

"Can I have the baby?"

Juliet rises, deposits her nephew in Rachel's arms. Rachel fixes her eyes on him again, searching his face. "You're in the second trimester now. Nothing's gonna happen. It's not like last time."

"I just keep worrying that the other shoe's gonna drop," she finally admits. Fifteen weeks in, and even Jack's still acting paranoid about it all.

"Juliet," her sister says, still looking intently at the baby's face. Staring at him, squinting, searching. Cataloging his features. "It's not." Her jaw clenches. A tear rolls down her cheek, defiantly.

Juliet's uncomfortable. She doesn't want to talk about this here, now, not after this long night, long day, this new baby, her nephew. Her nephew! She wishes Rachel weren't crying.

"So have you guys decided on a name yet?" she asks.

Rachel finally raises her eyes, and something wild, unflinching, unknowable glitters in them. "Sean."


	77. Isolated McMansion Suburban Living

**Remember how last time, I said that this chapter would have sections both before and then after the previous chapter? Yeah, I lied. It's all before. I started writing myself into a corner, and jeez. That got hard. Like, really really hard.  
**

**Anyway, I know I also said I was "back" last time, but I've been really busy. That said, I can't stand it when writers abandon their stories, and I really am committed to getting through to the end of this. I've kind of been working on and off on material for three chapters at once so there should be more updates... at least, sooner than three months like last time.**

**I've also been (probably) overthinking Juliet's character in this story, but the thing is, the nerdy, happy Juliet we saw in the Sideways is NOT the character we knew on the island. I'm sure they have plenty in common, but they've been through significantly different things and have led significantly different lives. So while I've been worrying she's out of character here... this Juliet is pretty much all constructed by the arc she's been having IN THIS STORY... not on the show. So I'm trying to give myself more room to allow for that.**

**If you're still reading (both after this huge editor's note, and after all this time), thank you.**

**Reviews are much appreciated!  
**

* * *

_She's 19 going on 30 _  
_ or maybe she's really 30 now_.

_It's hard to say._  
_ It's hard to keep up with time once it's on its way._

- Ani DiFranco, "Tamburitza Lingua

* * *

**Early 2000, continued**

The ringing phone pulls her out of a sound, dreamless sleep, and for a moment, she's confused, like she's expecting it to be sunny and there's someone reaching across her, in this unfamiliar room, but it's still dark, and David's next to her in the bed, and _what?_ and then she remembers: First night in their new house.

Is Jack calling her? Why?

She rolls over, fumbles for her cell phone. It's Michelle about a patient in labor - a patient Michelle's seen for only one appointment, and the parents-to-be were beside themselves that Juliet isn't the one on call tonight. "Don't worry about it," she cuts into Michelle's apologies. "Just call them back and tell them I'll meet them at the hospital. Tell them I have to drop off David first."

David isn't happy about the early wakeup call; he whines as he trudges down the hall. It's somewhere around 2 a.m. and they're about to get their first taste of what Isolated McMansion Suburban Living really means. Long time-consuming drives while sleep-deprived! Exciting! She dials Margo and Christian, counts past three rings, and then Christian's exclaiming a bright, "Yeah!" into the phone.

She understands that tone of voice; it's the same one she and Jack use when they're on call and the phone rings in the middle of the night, they way they shove down the exhaustion and dig out the professional, of-course-I'm-not-too-tired-to-come-in voice.

"Hey, it's Juliet," she says, even as she struggles out of bed and strips off her sweatpants, searches for something to wear before she just trades it in again for a set of scrubs.

"Juliet? I - Jack's at the hospital. Really. You can call him there."

"I - what?" She pauses, glancing down the hall. She hopes David's actually getting ready, as opposed to just faceplanting into his own bed.

"He was there when I left," Christian says defensively.

"Um..." Her stomach twists. "I just got called in. I wanted to take David down to you guys."

"Oh oh oh! Yes, yes, that's - hang on."

There's the muffled sound of his hand closings over the phone, and Juliet finds a pair of slacks and then Margo's on the line. "Juliet? That's fine. Bring him down."

* * *

The birth is mercifully brief, for all involved, a beautiful little girl who reminds her of Johannah, and Juliet's done not long after sun-up, too early, even, to fetch David. She stops off at a deli for breakfast since they have no food in the new house yet. During her drive back up, the sun is breaking over the clouds in the hills, pink and orange and white. It's beautiful up here, practically cut off from civilization.

That drive is going to be a bitch during rush hour, though, she sees it now.

Jack's decrepit Bronco is in the driveway when she pulls in, a gigantic rusting reminder that He Is Doing This For All Of Us. That he isn't struggling for his father's approval, that he _wants_ to be with her, _really_, it's just that he's working. That's all it is. She feels a lump in her throat but she narrows her eyes, tamping down those feelings. She wants to be angry.

Angry is easier.

In the kitchen at the back of the house, Jack's tying up his running shoes, his right leg bent up, his heel on the edge of the seat. "There you are," he says. "I was wondering, when I didn't see your car. You didn't you leave a note."

"Didn't think about it. I had a delivery." She's frozen in the doorway. She doesn't cross her arms.

"David?"

"At your parents'." _I should ask him about his patient_, the generous, responsible part of her brain comments, but the truth is, she doesn't particularly care to hear listen to that part, and he's not asking her about hers, either. "Jack," she begins.

His face clouds. "I'm sorry. That I wasn't here, it's just - "

"I know," she cuts him off, finally moving into the room, putting her holy trinity of coffee/bagel/yogurt on the kitchen counter. The air somehow feeling too thick, like coffee grounds caught in a French press. "I know, I know, I know. But I'm sick of acting like I don't care. I care! _Jesus_, Jack! This was supposed to be _special!_ We worked so hard for this, and you weren't even _here_ - "

Jack stands, his forehead furrowed. "I know. I know. But I, I couldn't..." His face changes. "Where do you think I was? I had to be there."

"I'm not so sure about that."

"I was at _work!_ I couldn't _leave_ my - I'm doing this for _us_, do you think we'd even be standing here right now if - "

"You are NOT doing this for us! You're doing this for YOU! If your father - "

"Just stop," he cuts her off, jerking away from her, moving toward the hall archway. She follows him. "That's just - Do you even know that my father thinks I work too much? He says you're going to start thinking I'm cheating on you. Because of his _own_ guilty conscience."

The contents of her stomach seem to curdle. "I... don't even know what to say to that. Goddammit, Jack! Just get another job! How many times have I told you, we could have moved away, I don't care!"

"Well, now we just bought a house. Come on, Juliet."

"We're just talking in circles again! Yesterday was a big deal and you missed it! And here you are trying to absolve yourself of all the blame, hiding behind - what the HELL, Jack?_"_

He's shaking his head, rapidly, and her heart sinks. "It's not so simple," he says. "We have obligations to our patients, you should know just as well as - "

"This is not about your _patients!"_

"This guy had a five percent chance of walking again. Five percent! How the _fuck_ is it not about my patients?"

_Only if "patients" is somehow spelled f-a-t-h-e-r._ "You know what? Forget it. I'm sick of talking to a brick wall. Have a great run," she snaps, that stupid lump still rising, rising, rising in her throat.

He gapes at her. "Well, I'm not going running _now."_

"Oh, no. Please go right ahead." She gestures toward the door. "Silly me, for thinking maybe you could stand to be home for more than five minutes at a time."

She wants to tell him she isn't pregnant and it's probably for the best, but she doesn't want to clue him in on just how goddamned close she is to crying. She clenches her jaw. Her face hurts.

"And you really want me driving an hour home after 12 hours of surgery?" Jack stands there at the edge of their pretty new blue and white kitchen. All around them are cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked from yesterday's move. Their life packed up and moved and everything's the same except now there's a mortgage too. "You know what, I'm sorry, Juliet. I don't..." He rubs a hand over his face. Blinking back tears. "I don't..." he tries again.

She hates when he cries. How come _he_ gets to cry?

"I don't know. I don't know," he's saying. "I'm going to try harder. You're right. God, you're always right. I'm sorry."

_Just get another job,_ she wants to sob. _I'm not always right. But why aren't we enough?_

"OK," she says instead, but she doesn't know if she believes it, but she's staring at the wall and forces herself to Just Stop Thinking About It. She feels her throat clear and she listens to herself regain equanimity, like she's someone else entirely. "All right. OK. Do you want to unpack with me?" Her chest still feels too tight, though, like this all blew up too fast to be settled so soon.

"Sure," he answers, rubbing a hand over his stubble, glancing over at her coffee. His eyes are fatigue-ringed and she wonders why neither of them is just giving up and going up to sleep.

"You can have _half_," she stresses_,_ about the coffee, trying desperately to regain that whole gentle good humor thing she's usually at least halfway decent at.

They move back into the kitchen, start cutting open boxes, unrolling wine glasses and mugs and bowls from weeks-old editions of the L.A. Times, swapping the single cup back and forth. Partway through, it occurs to her they could simply pour half into one of the newly unearthed mugs, but their fingers keep touching when they pass the cup to each other and they don't have a bad marriage, they don't. Her parents did, and Christian and Margo probably do even if they are still together, and Michelle told Juliet about the time she found a gold hoop earring in her bed with Edmund when she didn't even _have_ any gold hoop earrings, and and and.

And his fingers brush against hers again, the cup starting to feeling a lot lighter, her heart feeling at least a little bit lighter, and she should be very very certain about what they have here, what they are in their sunny new house, him in an old Wolverines T-shirt and running shorts, her in scrubs with her hair in a crazy-lady bun, but... (But what?)

"What's going on with your parents?" she finally asks, quietly and casually like she's asking if they're taking David to Disneyland again this year. She doesn't really want to know. "You said, his own guilty conscience."

Jack pauses, a stack of dinner plates suddenly drooping in his hand.

"Jack?"

"You want these here or on the other side of the sink?" He nods toward the cabinet nearest them.

"I don't care. On the other side, I guess." She bends down to stuff some of the balled-up old newspapers into a garbage bag, hiding her face from him.

Waiting.

"I don't really know," he finally says, his voice heavy with doubt. "She thinks he's cheating on her. My mom. I don't know if... if she's paranoid, or onto something, or..."

He trails off. Juliet waits, her heart sinking. "What do you think?" she finally says.

He rolls his eyes, spreading his hands apart. "As far as I know, there isn't any evidence."

She hesitates, thinking again about that earring in Michelle's bed, feeling guilty for what she's about to say. But she doesn't want anything else crashing down on them all, not when things suddenly seem so fragile it feels like they're living inside a glass Christmas ball.

"Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't go looking for it."

He opens his mouth to respond, but then there's the sound of an engine in the driveway and they glance at each other curiously, because they've lived here less than 24 hours and who could possibly be coming to see them? They meet Christian and David at the front door, Christian holding up the key they'd given him and Margo when they'd closed on the house two weeks earlier.

Oh. Right.

"Looks like someone forgot about David's Little League game," Christian chuckles. In her mind's eye, she can picture the team schedule on the fridge in their old house, but she'd ripped it down on Thursday along with everything else in a frenzy of last-minute packing.

"You remembered that all on your own?" she asks David, impressed, before reaching out to kiss him on the forehead. She's not exactly surprised when he wriggles away from her; there are not supposed to be any kisses from _Mom_ in front of the menfolk. _Gross!_ David makes a _yuck_ face. She just barely refrains from rolling her eyes; this is the same kid who was too scared to sleep in his own bed last night.

"Well, it's a big game," Christian supplies in an almost too-hearty voice. "He's catching today."

Juliet can tell from the way that Jack's eyes flicker over to her that neither one of them had any idea; even so, Jack claps David on the back. "I was just on my way down to come get you," he says, and she wonders if the lie tastes bad.

"Your baseball stuff is all in your room," Juliet supplies. "You can put it in the garage once we we're all unpacked. You want me to help?"

"Nope!" David ducks past her, scampers inside. Christian's still standing on the front walk, looking up at the house.

"Come in," Jack finally says. "We'll give you the grand tour."

Their kitchen is a Tetris game of boxes, but the rest of the downstairs rooms still echo. Their little four-person kitchen table looks absurdly tiny in the spacious dining room; the family room (or is that one the living room? what's supposed to be the difference anyway? well, one of them) is empty. Christian looks out at their spectacular view, the rolling land below them and the houses and backyard pools and trees and curling roads out into the valley.

"You need furniture," he chuckles.

"That's what David said," she notes.

He nods at their view. "Makes you worry about the big one, no? Is this place retrofitted?"

Jack's not saying anything beside her and she doesn't risk a glance. "Built in 1974. Earthquake-proof," she supplies.

"They love to say that. You don't want this place rolling down the side of the mountain one day. What about damage from '94?"

"Well, we passed inspection." But the confidence is gone from her voice. _Is this all you have to say? Because we could have bought a much crappier house if so._

"I'm going to see if David needs help," Jack says stiffly, and then he swings around them, around the corner, and he's gone, nothing more than too-loud footsteps on a staircase. She remembers the Christmas dinner when his parents gave her the car keys and Jack left her at the dining room table, squirming inside, wanting to disappear, hoping against hope that maybe just maybe she could accept.

What's she supposed to say to Christian? But as Juliet turns back to him, he's looking out at their view again. "Enough room to put in a pool," he observes mildly.

"I think we're going to do that this summer." Her heart is still thumping with indignation.

He turns back and offers her a close-lipped smile, the closest thing to a smile he ever gives anyone other than David or his dog. "You've done well for yourselves."

"You should tell him that." She nods toward the stairs.

"He knows," Christian scoffs.

They stand there and she doesn't know what to say, and so she doesn't say anything. She feels a strange little shiver then, the way he's looking at her. But it's over so quickly she's not even sure what she saw.

Another close-lipped smile. "Guess I'd better run," he says. "I'll see the rest of the house next time." And then he's calling up the stairwell, saying good-bye to Jack and David, and he lets himself out.

* * *

She's patient. She's quiet. She lets life go on. Gets David transferred to a Little League team in La Crescenta, gets him settled in at his new school, gets to know the teachers there, gets the other mothers to stop giving her wary looks for looking so young with a nine-year-old when she shows up at a PTA meeting one day still wearing her lab coat, which was by no means an accident.

* * *

They unpack. At least they won't have to move again for a long, long time.

* * *

"Trying harder" turns out to mean date nights. At first they're kind of a regular thing, she feels the fog lift. Two Friday nights in March and one in April, they go out to a fancy dinner and then a movie and take a brief, chilly walk afterword. They have sex after like it's not a Big Important Planned Thing and she goes to sleep with her head on his chest.

Another Friday, a non-date night, they take David to see the L.A. Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl because it's the kind of Enrichment Activity they're supposed to be doing with him.

The fourth time, though, they're at dinner when her cell phone rings, and Juliet cringes because she knows, she's on call this weekend and somehow she just knows. "I have a patient," she tells him after she hangs up, her heart hammering, because their food hasn't even arrived yet.

Something maybe gleams in Jack's eyes for just a split second, relief mixed with spite. But it's over so quickly she's not even sure what she saw. "We'll make it up another time," he tells her.

The next Friday night, and the one after that, he's working. She doesn't bring it up again.

* * *

They read.

Jack reads his way through most of those gifted children books he bought. Together they interview teachers, visit the Carter School of Music, decide on a multifaceted approach: Saturday mornings from nine to noon at Carter, lessons Tuesdays and Thursdays with Daniel Widmore, a jumpy 22-year-old with spiky hair and a prominent Adam's apple.

Juliet feels both soothed and anxious around him at the same time. Sits in his front room, his windowsill spider plants browning in the sunlight, as she reads her way through medical journals and a long list of books she's been meaning to get around to, dammit (The Virgin Suicides, Angela's Ashes, A Widow for One Year, oh hell, even Of Mice and Men, which she somehow got all the way through school without ever being assigned) while she listens to the music coming from the next room, interrupted periodically by Daniel's murmuring and everything that David says that seems to end in exclamation points.

Jack and David are working their way through the Oz books.

She doesn't even remember the last time she read poetry.

* * *

They still need more furniture.

* * *

David is happy. He doesn't complain about giving up Saturday morning cartoons. Juliet tapes them and he watches on Sunday mornings instead while he constructs Lego villages on the floor in front of the TV or makes careful notations in the workbooks he gets from Carter. Margo and Christian buy Dodgers season tickets again and they all take turns shepherding (heh) David and Ray to the games. Ray's been a little uncertain on his feet lately, a little confused. They're all looking after him these days.

She's been taking care of other people for almost half of her life already.

* * *

Nothing much else happens with Margo and Christian. Juliet chalks it up to a temporary glitch, a deceptive blip on the radar, Margo's paranoia at being left alone too much. Juliet gently suggests hobbies to Margo, hiking or volunteer work or book club.

* * *

Jack slaps a Carter School of Music bumper sticker on the back mirror of the Bronco.

* * *

What was it Niall said her her that one night out on the railroad bridge, back when she'd felt like the world was closing in over her head? Something about how the possibilities in your life just keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

She knows what he meant, what he was trying to say. She never studied abroad; she didn't go on spring break to Palm Springs. She didn't become a medical researcher. She'll never live in New York; she'll never get her PhD; she'll never work overseas. She'll probably never even become anything more than a moderately decent skier. All of this is supposed to be OK with her.

She's almost 30.

* * *

Anyway, work is great. Fantastic, even. Juliet and Michelle decide to end their freeze on new patients and hire a junior partner and an extra nurse. Her favorite patients are the young mothers. _Big shocker there._ She makes sure she spends extra time with them, explaining exactly what the hell is happening to their bodies, offering practical advice, filling out WIC and TANF and MediCal forms with them in her office, listening to the occasional teary outburst over boyfriends or broken engagements. Explaining about Pell grants and filing for child support, even handing out a community college coursebook now and then. She keeps a stack of them in her filing cabinet.

Hey, it's helpful to have a social worker for a best friend.

Sometimes when they're in her office, Juliet sees her patients glancing over at her corkboard full of happy mothers and their newborns. Tucked among them is a much older picture: her in a cap and gown the day she graduated from college, David in her arms, his mouth open in a sort-of smile. His baby teeth are so teeny-tiny. He's pointing at whomever took the picture.

_It's a long way between that and here and me then and this now,_ she doesn't say.

* * *

Sometimes Juliet thinks maybe she should just go back on the pill.

* * *

Rachel's belly grows.

* * *

Jack tells her to arrange to have the week of her birthday off. She's not sure why, but she does what he asks.

* * *

Since date nights are dead in the water, Tahlia starts coming over on Friday nights to watch "The X-Files" with her. They didn't mean for it to become a regular thing, but it's fun and so it does. The first week, David's at a sleepover, and Juliet's really not used to being the older sister. They order pizza and drink red wine and exchange Smoking Man theories. But the truth is, more and more Friday nights, at least once David's asleep, she would have been alone anyway.

The drive between St. Sebastian's and La Crescenta is horrendous, far worse than Juliet's commute to Westwood. Jack passes out on his office couch more and more, and Juliet wishes she could say she's getting used to it.

It's not like they have to do everything together. It's not like she really needs Jack to go furniture shopping with her, right? What's she been waiting for, anyway?

Finally she invites Margo to go with her, because honestly, the woman lives for this kind of thing. So they work their way through Ethan Allen and Pottery Barn and Mitchell Gold and BoConcept, and she overspends their budget. Living room, dining room, entryway, a guest room, new stuff for David, an armchair and end table for their bedroom.

The rooms will stop echoing once it's all delivered.

* * *

She still has this poem Niall gave her a million years ago, back in Arizona. Folded into quarters, the edges of the ink gone a little blurry, pressed into a Stephen King paperback Jack brought her back when she was in the hospital with David. There's a line in there about decorating your own soul. So she tears off a phone number from a coffee-store billboard flyer. Book club, yep, doesn't get much more exciting than this. _Here I am taking my own advice, Margo._

The guy who answers her call, Adam, tells her they're reading Our Mutual Friend and she should meet them at that same coffee shop in three weeks. So OK, there's that.

* * *

Juliet gets stuck at a birth and misses one of David's recitals, trying to force herself not to obsessively check the clock throughout.

Jack doesn't give her grief over it. She realizes she would have, if the situation were reversed, and so she tries not to complain when he sleeps at the hospital or isn't listening because he's got his face buried in a journal or his email or another one of those Your Child Is So Gifted and Precious the World Can't Even Handle It books.

He accepts her for who she is. Maybe everything's all in her head.

* * *

Because it's all driven home to her one night when Gemma calls her, sobbing on the freeway about how her boyfriend of more than two years had dumped her out of the blue. Juliet tells her to come over. Jack's working and David's sleeping over at Margo's so they can go to church in the morning.

They cry and curse his name and drink probably too much of Jack's whiskey and Juliet trips over the tangle of shoes in the hallway. She's making up a bed for Gemma on their couch when Gemma catches her hand.

"I love you," Gemma tells her, her words slurred. "Not just 'cause you get me drunk after I get my heart ripped out."

"I love you, too." Juliet smooths a hand over her forehead, holding the comforter up. "Slide on in."

Gemma's a compliant drunk. Juliet tucks her in like she's a little kid.

"Even though you live in Bumfuck, Nowhere now and you spend Friday nights geeking out in front of the TV," Gemma says.

"Thanks for that. Your water's on the end table, there." Juliet reaches over to turn off the light.

"You're so freaking lucky you have all this sorted out," Gemma mumbles, burrowing into the blanket. "I mean, like..."

Juliet stands in the dark, her heart suddenly thumping.

"...I know you haven't always been all that happy the past couple years, but really, like..." She sighs, a long, drawn-out sigh. Juliet's not really sure what it feels like, to have a broken heart. Maybe she does. She's not sure. Isn't that weird. "You have no idea what else is out there," Gemma says, almost near tears again. "Dating sucks. It _sucks. _It sucks."

And Juliet nods, because what else is she supposed to do? So what if Jack doesn't look at her anymore the way Rachel and Niall still look at each other. So what. They're grownups, and not everything has to be a fairytale.

_We have a good life,_ she tells herself. _We do._

* * *

Then one day in the middle of May, their new furniture arrives.


	78. Return Policy

_You can't really place blame_  
_'cause blame is much too messy._  
_Some was bound to get on you while you were trying to put it on me_  
_and don't fool yourself into thinking things are simple._

Ani DiFranco, "Hour Follows Hour"

* * *

**June 2000**  
**Venice**

They're sitting in Piazza San Marco, eating calamari alla diavola, dipping pieces of crusty bread into olive oil seasoned with sea salt and crushed black pepper, and she knows she has kind of a stupid grin on her face, because good God, they're _here_, they're here and she's...

(They're not really pretending, are they?)

It's all sun and kisses and pictures in gondolas and it's like life is a postcard of some other, happier, better life. For the past three days she's somehow managed to lead Jack through the streets like she knows the place, finding hidden lower-level restaurants with cracked basement walls, almost like she knew they'd be waiting. Figuring out where to rent bikes, finding a corner shop to buy aperitif glasses.

"You must have been a tour guide in a previous life," he'd teased her.

"Must have," she'd answered. Last night he took her to see La Traviata at Teatro La Fenice, the famous opera house she remembers her mother talking about, and it's the damnedest thing but with those goosebumps all up and down her arms, she could swear -

_No, no, no._ In reality, this is one more piece of her life that had once been taken away from her, her high school graduation trip that didn't come to fruition, but here they are and it's one more thing that Jack's given back to her. Not taken away from her. He didn't take away her possibilities, he just gave her different ones.

She needs to remember that more.

She really does.

Jack had surprised her with the tickets three days before they were leaving. If _surprised_ was really the right word, given the circumstances. It's the first trip they've taken, just the two of them, that's been longer than a three-day weekend. And they haven't even done a weekend in... a year?

Now his eyes meet hers over their water glasses and he smiles at her, a real smile, the way he always used to. She smiles blithely back. (Their conversations have gaps sometimes. But she's never been one to try to fill silences.)

They'd stayed in bed extra late that morning, her 30th birthday, and when there was a knock on the door she'd realized Jack had arranged for room service, flaking-apart croissants and fresh warm berries and strong strong coffee, and orange juice and champagne (whoops) for mimosas, and roses too, and it all felt like she's not ignored, not at all, never.

Wrapped up in crisp white sheets, they'd clinked glasses and he twirled her hair around his finger and they made love (Made Love: that's the official term, right?) until late morning because that was the kind of thing you did in Italy. And especially when it's your birthday, goddammit.

It was ten whole years ago now that she escaped her own party to sit on a rusting railroad bridge. (She wonders if it's still standing.)

He's saying something now and she's not not catching it. "Huh?" she says, and he rolls his eyes, maybe a little exasperated, maybe not.

"Having fun?" he asks.

_That's not all we're having,_ she thinks.

* * *

**May 2000**  
**Los Angeles**

David's off at church again with Margo when the first truck arrives. She'd been expecting them, had arranged for David to avoid the chaos. Jack's home, sort of, out running anyway. The inclines in their neighborhood offer a new challenge for him; Juliet always imagines him chugging water and thudding along the shoulders of roads, ignoring the cars as they blew by him, a little too closely. Cheating death out in the 'burbs. They're too far into the hills to even have sidewalks.

She'd just finished signing the delivery forms on their front steps when Jack huffs onto their sloping front lawn, his T-shirt dark with sweat. He nods at the truck, nods over at Juliet, then leans forward, stretching out his quads as she watches the steady stream of chairs, tables, bedroom furniture being hefted into the house.

"Come on, you can finally see what we got," she finally calls to him, and he jogs after her, follows her inside, wiping his face on his shirt. Half their new dining room set was already in place, still in its flattened foam covering.

"You did all this without me, huh?" he asks, still a little breathless from his run, and she just tilts her head and shrugs. What's she supposed to say? He doesn't really mind. They're ripping the covering off the chairs when she sees a flash of dove gray out of the corner of her eye, out in the hall, and her breath catches.

She must be hallucinating right now, or so she wishes.

But no. In the living room, two delivery men are gently setting down The Most Beautiful Couch in the Universe.

"Hey, wait a second," Juliet begins slowly.

* * *

**April 2000**  
**Beverly Hills**

In the store she actually groans when she sees the price tag. How could a couch be six thousand dollars? A _couch_. Even The Most Beautiful Couch in the Universe.

"Now this, _this_ is gorgeous," Margo declares, skimming her hand along the back. The gently sloping, perfectly contoured back. Classic but modern all at once, perfect for their geometric '70s house. _Dammit_. It's easily more than six feet long, even Jack could nap on it, not that she'd ever let him drool on a $6,000 couch.

Juliet just sighs. What a terribly difficult life she's leading, being disappointed that she (probably) shouldn't buy a $6,000 couch.

Margo stands back, observing this grand creature in its natural habitat, against a forest-green (fake) wall, fancy bookcases - they come custom! right down to the inch! - decked out with multicolored vases. She flips over the price tag and shrugs. "It'll go with anything."

"David would probably spill fruit punch on it the first day."

Margo laughs. "You may have a point there. But he's getting older now. You could keep food off-limits when he's in the living room."

Juliet tries to imagine that going over so well if they (someday, again) have a two-year-old. Even so, she's been thinking about going back on the pill anyway, and it's just a couch, but... no, no, no. They cannot spend $6,000 on a couch when less than a decade ago their seating arrangements had been courtesy of Goodwill. Besides, they have so many more expenses all of a sudden, a gigantic mortgage, the new pool going in, David's ramped-up music lessons. And they both need new cars.

"I can't," she says regretfully.

"Why can't you?"

"Jack wouldn't let me," she says, which is not at all true, but for some reason it's what comes out. May be a decent excuse anyway.

Margo frowns. "Wouldn't he want you to be happy? Don't you think you deserve this? You both work so hard."

"It's - just a couch." _It's not happiness,_ she doesn't say, considering she knows Margo's opinion differs rather significantly. After all, Juliet's seen the contents of Margo's walk-in closets. To say nothing of the Christmas presents_. ("This. Is. A. BIRKIN!"_ Gemma had screeched at her after Christmas last year.)

"Oh, you can afford it," Margo had insisted, rolling her eyes slightly. "Trust me, I know what Jack's bringing home these days. And after everything else today, what's a little extra? You _need_ a couch, don't you? This would look perfect against the big windows."

"I..." Juliet feels the longing go all the way to the tips of her fingers. But it's not a longing for the Most Beautiful Couch in the Universe, or at least she doesn't think so. It's something furniture probably can't fix. And she's not turning into her mother-in-law, she's not. She can't. "I can't," she says again, and that was that, or so she thought.

* * *

**May 2000**  
**Los Angeles**

"Hey, wait a second," Juliet begins slowly. The delivery men glance up. "I didn't - we didn't order this couch."

One of them barely refrains from rolling his eyes, she can just see the slightest glint of white. He stabs a finger toward her hand. "You got the papers you just signed?"

She gives him a skeptical look before doubling back toward the dining room. Jack trails after her, watches as she shuffles through the carbon paper copies she'd left on top of their brand new buffet. There it is, though, The Most Beautiful Couch in the Universe, otherwise listed on the invoice as Paid in Full. What the hell? Her eyes flicker over to Jack's. "I didn't order this couch," she tells him, but his eyes are round, confused. Clearly he has no idea.

"So we'll tell them," he answers.

They march back into the living room in solidarity. Team Fight-the-Power-of-the-Beautiful-Couch. Then all four of the march back to the truck. What an ordeal. There, their nameless chief delivery man shuffles through his own files.

"Margo Shephard?" he finally asks, thrusting a paper at her. "You signed for it right here."

"I'm Juliet Carlson," she manages in her iciest tone, except her voice wavers slightly as Margo's plan fills itself in inside her head.

"Margo Shephard is my mother," Jack interjects.

"Well, it looks like she wants you to have that couch." He nods his head toward the house.

Jack glances at Juliet for only the briefest of moments. "Well, you'll have to take it back. We didn't order it."

"You may not have ordered it, but it's paid for, and this one here signed for it."

"Excuse me," Juliet cuts in. "'This one here' would like to know why you can have people sign for something they never ordered."

"Look, you'll have to take it up with the store. We just deliver. Don't have any control over orders, you understand? Looks to me like you two got a nice present from Mom, so why don't you just enjoy it?"

Easier said than done.

After the emptied delivery truck rattles its way down the hill, the two of them pause at the living room archway. She's not looking at him, but she feels his eyes on her. "Did you - why would she have done that?"

"Because I liked it."

"But you didn't get it because...?"

Her mind unspools to that time way back during their first icy Michigan winter when their phone had been shut off and Juliet had cashed that $500 check from Margo. She's pretty sure she never told Jack about that. Not entirely sure. But pretty sure. "It was more than I thought we should spend."

"We're sending it back," he finally says, stiffly.

"It's..." Juliet begins, and then hesitates.

"No, what?"

"It's... a really nice couch, Jack. She was trying to do something nice for us. That's how she is."

"Yeah, _how_ nice?"

"What?"

"How nice of a couch?"

"A lot nice," she mumbles.

"How much, Juliet?"

"Six thousand." She wishes she were anywhere else right now.

"Six thousand dollars," he repeats, and she nods. "OK, this is going back, now!" He spins around and heads down the hall, patting his pockets, probably searching for his cell phone. "We didn't ask - you didn't _ask_ her for this, did you?" He turns again, to face her this time, and she's right behind him.

"What? No, of course not!"

"But you want to keep it, don't you? We're NOT keeping it!"

_This isn't an unwanted pregnancy_, she almost snaps. "I wanted it," she admits. "But I said we shouldn't - "

"Well, of course we shouldn't have - Jesus, Juliet, they're just doing it again!" He pulls away from her, back into the living room, headed for the cordless house phone that's been resting on the floor ever since they moved into this gigantic empty house.

"They're not - she was trying to - "

"Oh, _come_ on!" They're up against each other in the corner of the room. The couch practically glows in a patch of sunlight. Should have been delivered with a gigantic red bow like those Christmas-gift luxury cars in the commercials. (Although she's actually been the recipient of a Christmas-gift car once, albeit without the bow.)

"Well, maybe if you had BEEN there with me, I wouldn't have invited her along in the first place!"

Jack gapes at her, open-mouthed, his eyes going dark. "Oh, you are fucking kidding me now, Juliet."

"Uh, no, _hello!_ Earth to Jack!" She actually waves her hand directly in front of his face, and he grabs her wrist. "What the hell do you _expect_, you're never around anymore!" She jerks her wrist back.

"Well, why do I _have_ to be? YOU make the decisions and I'm just supposed to follow you. The furniture's not just it. Michigan, moving back to L.A., I cashed out my retirement fund so YOU could have your practice - "

"I NEVER asked you to do ANY of those things! And you just keep throwing it _all_ back in my face like I EVER asked you to - _I'm_ the one who doesn't have a choice! I feel like I've _never_ had a choice! _I'm_ the one running around all the time, Little League and music lessons and - "

"No, _you're_ the one who acts like the martyr all the time! Come on, trust me, I haven't forgotten you do all that, because you NEVER stop reminding me what a failure I am at all of this. NEVER!"

Her chest constricts, for her, for him, for both of them, she's not sure. She flashes back to the night he proposed, his jumpy eyes, the almost-shy way he'd asked her if he was a good father, good to her.

Last week one of the other moms at Carter had assumed she was a single mother.

"You are _not_ a failure, Jack, but - "

"BUT!" he cuts her off. "I'm not a failure, BUT, BUT I'm a failure. Thanks, Juliet, that really fucking clears it up." He's so close to her know they're almost touching.

"I _wasn't_ going to say that!"

"You were thinking it!"

"You know what?" she demands. "You don't even _want_ to be here, do you? Just be honest with me, if you can't even be honest to yourself. Usually I think this is about you working so much to prove yourself to your father, but that isn't even all it, is it? You just don't want to admit it because _you_ don't know how to be alone, do you? How many girls were you dating when you were in med school? I don't even think I could have kept track if I'd tried! You're in love with the _idea_, and so maybe you followed me across the country, and then you followed me back, and maybe I was the one in the right place at the right time, or the _wrong_ time, or - "

"OK, you've - that's - " He's breathing so hard she's thinks he's on the verge of hyperventilating. "What in the actual fuck? Are you that insecure? I'm trying - I'm - FUCK this, Juliet! FUCK this! I'm working all the time? Where the FUCK do you think we're getting the money for all this? _You_ want this house? _You_ want this $6,000 fucking couch?" He storms toward it, gives it a good heavy push but the thing barely budges.

"I did not - " She follows him.

"You might as well - " He spins around.

"I did NOT - "

"Do you want it, or no?"

She thinks about David's lessons, his music school, their massive mortgage. The gigantic backyard pit that's supposed to turn into a pool in the next couple of weeks. The designer bags Rachel had goaded her into buying last week. What had she even been thinking? (The tags are still on. Maybe she should just return those. But no, why _should_ she? She works her ass off, not like Margo, doesn't she _deserve_ - God, she really isn't turning into Margo, is she? Now _she_ feels like she's on the verge of hyperventilating.)

"You know what, Jack? Don't even _promise_ to try harder this time. Don't even _promise_. It's WAY more fun to just keep having the SAME fight over and over and OVER again! Maybe _next_ time we can start ranking them," she bites out. "What was this, a 6? Come on, we can do better than that!"

"You tell me something," he says, hovering over her now, invading her space, his voice low and dangerous. He's so close now she can feel the heat radiating off him. "You tell me, Juliet. If your father - if either one of your fathers - even showed the slightest bit of interest in you - you tell me you wouldn't give _any_thing for that. Why _else_ do you try so fucking hard all the goddamn time?"

Juliet feels it in her chest, building and building, and she wants to hit him, her hands balling into fists, her face contorting. "Fuck you," she bites out instead. "Or do you need your father's permission first?"

The worst thing she's probably ever said in her entire life and it's to her husband. Her husband. She didn't even know she could say a thing like that, but the words feel robust in her mouth, meaty and salty like blood.

She doesn't know what she expected from this, but then he's even closer to her, his pelvis pushing against hers, his hands on her hips, pushing her back, up against the arm of their fucking perfect brand-new designer couch, and she stifles a gasp or a moan, because this is fucked up and everything's sinking and she just wants it to be like it once was. She wants to scream and cry and hit him and come so hard she can't remember her own name anymore.

Jack pushes her down, tips her back, his tongue in her mouth, hers in his, one hand moving up over her stomach, under her tank top. His other hand is grabbing her ass, his body against hers, overtaking her almost, and she's flooded with a desire she can't even understand except that he ruined everything, _everything_ she had once (but what even was it that she had, before?), and she wants him to _know_ it but he never will.

She shoves him off her for a second and they stare at each other, glaring, and she tries to figure this all out but there isn't enough time before she lets him push her back down again and they get most of their clothes off before they can't wait anymore.

It's rough and angry and quick _(who are we?)_, over the edge of the couch, and afterward she lays in the crevice between the back cushions and the seat, Jack half-on, half-off the couch, his left arm and leg trailing to the floor. The plastic covering the delivery men had just pulled off is surrounding them on the floor like they themselves have just been unwrapped, new and pristine and unruined.

Her panties are still looped around one ankle and she draws up her leg, pulls them back on.

Jack makes a noise in his throat, part sob, part sigh, and wraps his arms around her. His chest is sweaty and heaving and he's almost crying now, but silent, gasping and sucking in air like a drowning man, and she keeps her face away from him, cool and clean. She doesn't want him looking at her right now.

_We're breaking,_ a little voice in her head says, it's not her own real voice, more like some sort of omniscient narrator she's never noticed before, some other, wiser, more seasoned Juliet, only that Juliet _hates_ this Juliet in this moment, because this Juliet doesn't know what to do anymore, and Juliet is always supposed to know what to do.

"I love you," he whispers against her neck, crying for real now, almost sobbing, and at first she can only nod, her hair smearing his tears across her face.

* * *

**June 2000**  
**Venice**

"Having fun?" he asks.

_That's not all we're having,_ she thinks. "So much," she manages.

If he was so angry about his mother's grand gestures, what about his own? They're _here_, aren't they? This is the trip he'd planned as a surprise, the trip he'd told her about while they lay half-naked on their brand-new couch. The couch they called his parents about afterward, thanking them.

It looks great in their living room. Just like Margo said it would.

Now she's watching flocks of pigeons land on the tourists offering them birdseed, extending their hands, being swarmed. "We need to do that," Jack says. He points to one of the birdseed vendors, about twenty feet from the edge of their roped-off cafe. "After lunch."

"That seems mildly unsanitary." Strange and gross and never something anyone would do if they weren't on vacation, but here it's whimsical and funny and also, encourages those pigeons to just keep on breeding. There's probably a whole birdseed industry here she'd never even contemplated.

"David would get a kick out of the photos. The two of us getting dive-bombed?"

She laughs. "That's true. Maybe we could smuggle him back an Italian pigeon."

"Ginger would eat it."

"Maybe we should smuggle two, then."

They smile at each other, a little blandly, and then their wine arrives, and _ohhh, right._ Their waiter pours, and says something about their entrees coming up in an amount of time that she doesn't quite catch before he leaves again. Jack holds up his glass, and she does too, and the window in which to say something is rapidly closing.

"Happy birthday," he says, for probably the eighth time today.

"I'm pregnant," she says. Just like that.

The moment hangs between them like a rainy day, years ago in their wilted, water-logged Michigan backyard, back when their arguments seemed more reparable and less like glued-together china. Back when she'd stood on their back steps, watching a tiny David playing in mud puddles, wondering if she could save her sister's life. _I have to tell you something._

Jack exhales and his mouth opens, just a millimeter or two, like it's all a dream and they'll wake up if he says anything, and ruin it all.

"Really?" he breathes. "You're sure?"

"I took a test this morning. When you were in the shower. And trust me, our trip to Tuscan wine country is going to be a lot less fun now. At least for me."

She smiles, trying to project an aura of calm, pretend as though her heart isn't racing. She's gone out in late morning, right after Jack had failed at coaxing her into the shower with him. He's been weirdly interested in a shower sex the past couple of years, but Juliet can't ever quite get into it. Someone's always missing the water and getting cold, or knocking into the faucet or tipping over a shampoo bottle, and the angles never work. Just awkward.

So this morning had been her first chance to get out without Jack. Her period had been due the day before they left L.A., but in the flurry of packing and traveling and their first incredible days she'd managed to put that fact out of her head. Not exactly hard considering they've been pretending this whole time.

Pretending they're happy, pretending that day with the couch never happened, pretending... well, this part isn't pretending. This part is real.

And that day on the couch? Definitely happened.

It doesn't matter that the directions were all in Italian; two pink lines are two pink lines in any language. Two pink lines that mean another 18 years of fighting and trying to get him to pay attention to her.

But Jack is smiling at her now, and his eyes crinkle up and she knows it's a real smile, not a pretending smile. She has to look down at her lap, tears in her eyes.

"Hey," he's saying. "Hey hey hey hey." There's the scrape of a chair against the flagstones and then he's kneeling down in front of her like they're not surrounded by other couples and other tables in the middle of a very crowded square. She hears someone say something behind them, but it's in Italian and it doesn't matter. "It's gonna be OK. It's not going to be like last time. This, this is meant to be." His palm is open on the side of her face, his hand warm and rough and dry.

She hadn't even been thinking of that. That thing that happened last December. That baby they'd tried to have, and then didn't. Her eyes meet his and she doesn't try to disguise the fear in them. She wants this baby, even if she doesn't want everything else that will come with it.

"It's gonna be OK," he repeats.

She leans into his hand.

* * *

**May 2000**  
**Los Angeles**

"I love you," he whispers against her neck, crying now, and at first she can only nod, her hair smearing tears across her face.

"Are you happy?" she finally asks, softly, her eyes on the fabric of their couch. Will the store even take back a couch after you've had sex on it? This probably isn't something listed in the return policy.

"Am I..." Jack trails off.

"Are you happy?" she repeats, finally bringing her eyes to meet his.

He's quiet for a long time, and their sweat is drying now, so she dares to rest her head on his chest. Dares because this is a gesture that seems almost too intimate right now, even though they're only half dressed. Even though they've been married for almost seven years. Juliet feels the motion when he shakes his head no, and she closes her eyes.

Jack reaches up and wipes tears from his face right around the time that hers start, but hers fall quietly and they just lie there for a long time, breathing in and out.

"Are you happy?" he whispers back to her, eventually.

She shakes her head, the skin of her cheek sticky on his chest.

"So what do we do?" She feels him say it more than hears it. He's speaking so quietly, so unlike him. Like the house is bugged, someone listening in, searching for clues.

"I don't know." _We just bought this house. Our whole life was supposed to start here._ As if everything that came before was just practice. (It wasn't.)

"I um. I... We're supposed to be going to Italy."

"What?" Juliet half-sits up, enough so she can see his face. "What are you...?"

"I... I asked you to get off from work. The week of your birthday. It was... I was supposed to surprise you."

"Oh my god." She sits up the rest of the way. Jack looks scared, as scared as that night he'd found her lying on the bathroom floor last December. _Don't think about that._

"Yeah. I... do you want... I mean... Maybe we can just start over. I don't know. A fresh start."

"Italy?" she repeats.

"Venice. And then Tuscany. I know you were supposed to go with your mom, and I..."

"Jack," she says softly, because she's doesn't know what to think and she needs time. That he wants to give her this is amazing. But how can he not see the hypocrisy in this: that his mother's grand gestures are enough to launch a screaming fight, but his are sacred?

"I don't know what to say. I..." If she brings that up, they're right back to fighting.

He's sitting up now too, grabbing her hand. "Let's just go. Things will be better."

"In a vacuum. What happens when we come back and it's just all here waiting for us?"

He rubs a hand over his face, over his stubble. There's more gray in it, all of a sudden. When was the last time she'd really looked? He's only thirty-three. And a half. "Maybe we should get counseling, I don't know."

_Because professional help has always worked for me in the past._ "OK. Maybe. I don't know, I..." Why is it so bad to _want_ things, though? Can't she just let herself _have_ things?

"Let's just go," she decides, "and have fun, and pretend. That's what I want to do. I want to pretend, and maybe... I don't know. I'm so sick of fighting. Let's just... go, and pretend."

His forehead furrows. "Pretend what?

"Pretend everything is perfect. I'm so sick of all this."

"Me, too."

"They're silent for a long time, not looking at each other. She's wearing a tank up and underwear and feels more naked than not. He reaches for her hand. "I still love you, you know."

It's weird how calm she feels, all of a sudden. "Just because two people love each other doesn't mean they're supposed to be together."

"We're _supposed_ to be together," Jack says, firmly. Stubborn to the end. Except this isn't the end. Is it? No. No. Who is she, even, without him? They've been together a third of her life.

Juliet can't think about this right now.

"So when do we leave?" she asks instead.

* * *

**June 2000**  
**Venice**

That night they lie together in a patch of moonlight on cool crisp sheets, her head on his shoulder, eyes half-closed, his hand on her lower abdomen. What she wouldn't have given for a night like this ten summers ago.

"When were you happiest?" Jack asks suddenly, quietly. His voice is almost a whisper. This sounds like the start of something, or the end. This sounds like No Longer Pretending.

"What?" She heard him, but she needs time.

"When were you happiest?" he repeats.

She's had time. "Probably... probably the first year or so after we got married. Or when you first moved back to L.A., when I was doing my residency."

"Really? Even though... you know."

_Detroit. DeGroot._ Juliet squeezes her eyes the rest of the way shut. "I was just happy to have you back," she admits. "What about you?"

"What?"

She's not sure whether he's the one buying time now. "When were you happiest?" Juliet asks.

Jack interlaces his fingers with hers. "Right now," he says, and her heart sinks. (_It's gonna be OK,_ he'd said earlier.) He's still pretending.


	79. The Impossible

**Anyone still reading this…?**

**If so, this scene takes place a little more than one year before the previous chapter [a Lost(TM)patented jump back in time], with another POV switch. (Hey, Rachel!)  
**

**Since it's probably been a long time since you've looked at this story, here's what you need to remember: Juliet worked as an office admin for DeGroot while she was in medical school. Right before she was going to graduate and leave, he realized he was out of time, and kidnapped her in an attempt to get her to remember, because none of his previous efforts had worked (other than giving her a lot of vivid dreams, which of course Juliet never actually mentioned to DeGroot because why would she have?). **

**While he had her, he told her everything, and she soooorrrrtttaa kinda wanted to believe him. After she was rescued, she told Rachel what he'd told her. Rachel had already remembered their previous life, but didn't understand why Juliet would have been in the 1970s and didn't let on that anything was weird. Eventually Juliet brushed it all off as crazy, and has been moving away from "something is strange here" ever since.**

**Good chapters to read in conjunction with this: Ch. 76, and the May 16 portion of Ch. 66.**

**And if you're still reading, please drop me a comment and let me know! I'd still really like to finish this thing, but I want to know there's still readers out there.**

* * *

_Unmarked airplanes buzz the air_  
_and you're falling off that cliff somewhere_  
_in California which I've never seen._  
_I put the pieces all together,_  
_but I don't know what they mean._

- The Mountain Goats, "Cobscook Bay"

* * *

**Rachel**  
**Detroit**  
**Summer 1999**

She shouldn't even be here.

No way in hell should she be here.

The air is already stale, already smells like ammonia-based cleaning products and old sweat and she's still only at the security desk, digging the edges of her driver's license into her fingers.

It's just that Rachel's been wondering lately. Not all the time. Just.. just sometimes. Like when Niall is grading papers and his mouth opens, just slightly, as he silently rereads a passage she's sure he's about to read aloud to her once he's collected his thoughts. Or when the sunlight's too bright and he squints, cupping his left hand above his eyes, never his right, even though he's right-handed. Or when she's raging against something or other and his eyes start to glaze over, his dimple twitching and she gets her hackles up even more because she _knows_ he's about to start humoring her.

("You _don't_ just stay out all night without calling! What the hell is this, a hotel? What did you _think_ I was going to think? Anything could have happened, you could have been hit by a drunk driver, you could have been _carjacked_, you're a goddamn _teenager_, and until you leave for college - "

His eyes had glazed over by then. His dimple twitched. "I called you and left you a _voicemail_, Ma! You must have slept right through it. I fell asleep at Eric's, we were _fine_, Mom.")

"Next," the guard calls, portly in his dark blue uniform, and Rachel can see a little spot, high on his left cheek, that he'd missed while shaving this morning. She steps through the metal detector, knows she's only getting in deeper and deeper now. She imagines them closing gate after gate behind her, and stands, feet spread, arms out, while the guard wands her and then permits her to pick up her bag from the conveyor belt.

The whole thing reminds her of flying, and all those TSA agents and take-your-shoes-offs, back then, Before (as she's taken to thinking of it).

It's always Before, Before, Before.

Those "new" security measures are still more than two years away, anyway. Unless there's anything in _hell_ she's supposed to do to prevent 9/11, but what's she supposed to do, tell someone (who?) and get flagged as a terrorist, and when she starts thinking about those sorts of things, she starts to feel crazy again, and -

Well, anyway, this is now, or Now, NOW, with capital letters, and she's not in an airport. No, instead, here she is in the Ryan Correctional Facility.

She shouldn't even be here.

No way in hell should she be here.

* * *

Dr. Gerald DeGroot is somehow both thinner and heavier at the same time, paunchy on carb-heavy prison food, and grayer, more haggard-looking than she remembers from the mug shots, the single court hearing she'd attended.

He's been in here three years. His prison jumpsuit reminds her of medical scrubs for some reason.

"Thank you for putting me on your visitors' list," Rachel says by way of greeting.

"Your... your letter didn't say why you wanted to see me, but..." He hesitates, glancing down at the battle-scarred table between them before he looks up again. She's impressed, or maybe a little sickened, that he has the courage to actually look at her. "I don't get many visitors," he says.

_I'm sorry,_ she almost says, but bites back her words, because this is still the man who locked her baby sister in a tiny walled-up fake house for almost a week, and Rachel is supposed to hate him.

She thinks she still might, but she needs answers. Deserves them, needs them, whatever. She doesn't know anymore. She's married and has what she should think is the single most perfect, beautiful baby in the whole world (except there was an equally perfect, beautiful baby before her) and her sister's still alive and Rachel's so goddamn happy most days, but sometimes, sometimes in the blink of an instant she realizes just how alone she is in all of this, the only survivor clinging to a raft in the middle of a vast ocean.

And _Imagine that,_ she almost says to him, because she feels like maybe that's what she owes to her sister. But she didn't come all this way, didn't tell her husband she needed a girls' weekend with her old college friend Amanda in Chicago away from the baby, didn't do all that just to alienate DeGroot in the first five minutes.

He's still looking at her. She needs to open her mouth. She's never really had a problem doing that before.

"You're the only one I know who..." she tries.

That's not the way to begin. They don't even remember the same world. There must have been another one, too, that one in the '70s. Right? Rachel tries to imagine being an adult in the '70s. A baby boomer's childhood. Howdy Doody and Tang and Debbie's Dream House, the stuff their mother told them about. She can't. How could Juliet have?

Maybe DeGroot really is crazy.

Rachel's not.

"How is she?" DeGroot finally says. "Your sister."

_Kind of wilting, lately, actually. R_achel's never seen anyone work as hard as Juliet. She doesn't know how she hasn't gone off the deep end yet. Rachel would have. "She's OK. Mostly. She um, went to therapy for awhile, after. Um..."

DeGroot's still looking at her, growing slightly concerned. "I do want Juliet to know... how very sorry I am."

Rachel shakes her head. "She doesn't know I'm here. She can never, _ever_ know I came here, do you understand?" How could she ever explain to her sister she went to see him?

His forehead wrinkles. "Yes, of course, but I... why _are_ you here, exactly?"

"Because I remember."

He's shaking his head now. "Remember...?"

Finally, finally the floodgates open. "She told me, um... She told me what you said. About the '70s, and the island, and... that's not what I remember, but... I remember a different world. Another life, before this one. But not the one you told my sister about. She wasn't an _adult_ in the '70s, she was _born_ in 1970. Same as this time. But she got a job offer, and went off somewhere, and I never saw her again. Her boyfriend came back, I mean, I'd never met him before but he was in that famous plane crash, and he said she'd died in an accident, and I don't know. I don't know. I had my son and watched him grow up, and I got married and then divorced, and I got old, and so did my son, actually, and I saw my _grandkids_ grow up, and then... things got kind of fuzzy, I guess, and then the next thing I know I'm waking up in a hospital bed in 1993 with all these _other_ memories of a _complete_ other life, although, not really, I guess, I mean, I really did live my life this time, it's not like I jumped straight to this lifetime then, and a bunch of stuff is different, like my cancer was cured a lot faster, and then there's my husband and my daughter, and..."

All the time she's been talking she's been watching his face transform. From puzzled to concerned to shocked to elated to confused.

"Sorry," she says, for the two-ton information dump, her heart still racing. "I just... thought you might be able to help."

He twists in his seat, his eyes excited and jumpy. "You haven't met anyone else? Who remembers?"

"Not that I know of. It's not like we have a secret handshake or anything. Is it?"

DeGroot leans in at their little round table in this visitors room, half-full of inmates sitting with mostly women: wiry-haired, world-weary mothers; teary-eyed wives and girlfriends, and then there's the kids. A swarm of toddlers. An adolescent boy nearby has the hint of a mustache on his upper lip and is trying to look everywhere but at the man Rachel assumes is his father.

"Tell me again," DeGroot says. "Slower this time."

Rachel tries to explain, about their mother dying when Juliet was barely out of high school, this time around. About Niall and Johannah, this time around. About David and Jack, this time around. About the way Rachel's cancer was cured, this time around.

And then, how everything was, Before. Rachel barely making it through three rounds of cancer, spread out over almost 10 years. About how they'd thought This Was It, and Juliet had helped her conceive Julian almost as a last wish; about exactly what those Mittelos people told her; about Edmund and Michelle Burke, about James Ford showing up at Rachel's door. About the plane that had crashed with both him and, impossibly, _Jack_, aboard.

"This is all fascinating," DeGroot says, his chin resting on his fist. "But... If you want me to tell you you what the meaning of all this is... or what _caused_ it..." He sighs, nodding up at the bars on the high rectangular windows, just under the ceiling, like school gymnasium windows. "I sacrificed my freedom trying to figure that out."

"Why my sister? Why her?"

He sighs. "She's the only person I've ever come across organically whom I remember from that past life. She applied to Michigan, and I couldn't believe my eyes. I tried everything to get her to remember. She and her crew infiltrated the Dharma Initiative - " And then he's off, talking about all these scientific experiments they'd been working on, electromagnetism and such, and hippie commune blah blah blah and Rachel feels her attention waning, until it occurs to her what he's really telling her:

He's never met anyone else who remembers, either. Rachel's throat swells and she tries not to breathe too much or else she'll cry. Finally he seems to stop talking.

"Do you think... there's more than two worlds?" she gets out. "I mean... my sister and I, we weren't born in, like, the '30s or '40s or whatever."

DeGroot mulls that over. "It's possible. Is it likely that we would both remember different worlds? I don't know. Maybe... I've been wondering if perhaps time travel wasn't at play."

_Oh, time travel. Sure._ She decides to let that remark go by. Let him expound upon that in letters later, if he wants. This is all crazy enough without inviting Marty McFly to this party. "Is this reality the second one, or are they both happening at the same time? I never remembered anything from this world in my previous life."

He nods. "I think you just answered your own question there. But your sister, your sister was in on... something. We never figured out what. They dropped a bomb down into an electromagnetic pit and all disappeared in a burst of white light. Maybe going back to the future? Or further into the past? If I could only find out from her, if..."

Right, because fertility researchers always time-travel and then run around on desert islands throwing bombs down holes. Maybe this guy really is crazy. That would be the easiest explanation, right?

She's tired, Johannah's only barely sleeping through the night, and Rachel got up at 6 a.m. to catch her flight. And he doesn't really know anything. Does he? But she can't go until she asks.

"My, um, my husband here," she begins. "This time around. He wasn't... I mean, last time, I had a son. We used donor sperm. My sister, you know, she was a fertility researcher and... um... I'm married here. You know... now. Whatever. However that goes. And... we have a daughter. She's... I mean, my son, last time, he was born in 2002. But... I kind of thought, when I got pregnant this time, maybe she would be a boy, you know? Like, the world correcting itself or something. That... That it would be him. But it wasn't."

DeGroot nods sympathetically. She feels pathetic for asking what she's going to ask.

"My husband... sometimes I wonder if he was Julian's donor. My son's donor. I mean... I don't even have a picture of him, and I can't talk about him to anyone. He's just... gone."

Rachel had tried secreting off to a support group for awhile, mothers who had lost children, but she'd been pregnant with Johannah at the time and she felt outlandishly guilty for all the glances at, and then away from, her belly. Besides, she couldn't sit there for 90 minutes listening to all that grief, all those could-have-beens. Julian had been a _grandfather_, last thing Rachel remembered. He'd had a long and happy life. All those other children barely got to start theirs.

In short: She'd felt like she was faking.

Maybe she was.

"It's not that he just looked like my husband; he looked like my _daughter_, too." But then, Julian always kind of resembled Juliet, and Johannah does too, and maybe anything more than that is just wishful thinking and her chest hurts from wanting this too much. "So..."

"I'm not sure what you're asking."

"If my husband was the donor... do you think we can have a shot at getting my son back? I mean, who decides who's new and who isn't? My sister never had a child last time. We have another sister, too, and I don't think she existed last time. Maybe she did, I don't know. We never met her if she did. And my daughter didn't exist either. But... it can't just be... I mean, _we're_ here again. You know?"

All through this, he's nodding, but he also looks very, very sad, slouching in his plastic chair. "You mean if you had another child?"

_Yes, God, anyone, please, please. I never thought I deserved as much as I've gotten in this life. But please. PLEASE._ - She nods.

"I don't know," he says. "If your husband really was the donor, you may have been fated to meet him. I don't think it's impossible."

* * *

All the rest of that day, all that night, all the next day on the plane back to California, she keeps telling herself: _Not impossible. Not impossible. Not impossible._

In bed at home that first night back, once Johannah's asleep and the house is locked up and the curtains are closed, she curls herself around Niall. "Let's have another baby," she whispers in his ear.


End file.
